


If a Tree Falls

by DarylDixonGrimes



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Child Death, Disassociation, Frottage, Gore, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, M/M, Mystery, Pining, Protective!Rick, Rickyl, Shock, Slow Burn, Trauma, because I know what I'm about, bottom!daryl, but we can go ahead and say, even if it doesn't happen until like chapter 500 or something, i haven't written any porn yet, top!rick, unrequited high school crushes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2018-11-13
Packaged: 2019-02-06 04:11:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 21
Words: 55,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12809340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarylDixonGrimes/pseuds/DarylDixonGrimes
Summary: When a Dixon shows up at the Greene property covered in blood, it's up to Sheriff Rick Grimes to piece it all together.





	1. Flecks of Red

It’s nearly 4 a.m. on a Wednesday when Rick gets the call.

“I thought it best I call you directly. You really need to come out here, sheriff.” It’s Hershel Greene, and Rick doesn’t need the man on the phone to tell him that, though he does anyway. His voice is distinctive and unforgettable within their little town, instantly recognizable even by Rick who has barely associated with him.

Only it sounds different as Rick listens to it through the speaker of his cell phone, his eyes squinting at the pale green numbers on his alarm clock. There is an urgency and fear in Hershel’s words that drives him to get up instantly, despite how much he wishes he could stay in bed just a few more minutes. He doesn’t bother with his uniform. Jeans and a plain white tee shirt take a lot less time to pull on. 

His gun rides in the passenger seat of his cruiser as he speeds out to the Greene family farm. He doesn’t know it then, but he will regret wearing white.

A man named Otis meets him in the driveway and walks him back behind the house, the two of them following the tree line until they find Hershel. He’s not alone.

Next to him on a felled tree sits the Dixon kid, though he hasn’t been a kid for a while. Rick doesn’t have time to wonder why most of them down at the sheriff’s office still call him that despite the fact that he’s nearly the same age as all of them, if not older.

He looks like a nightmare and he doesn’t react to Rick’s approach, his apathy just as off-putting as his appearance. Rick has arrested Dixon boys before. They kick up dust and fuss and curse. The shiny gold badge on Rick’s hip should be enough for him to start hissing and spitting venom.

“I found him like this,” Hershel says, wariness enclosing his explanation like a cage. “Hasn’t said a word.”

“Did you put the blanket on him?” Rick asks, his mind reeling even as he tries to piece everything together. The blanket is the only part of Daryl not completely covered in blood. The rest of him is all shades of red and rust from head to toe. Even his hair looks a mess, still wet in some areas, dark dry clumps in others. The copper smell of it permeates the air violently, and Rick feels his insides lurch before he tamps down on the urge to vomit. 

“We did,” Hershel says, and it’s clear why. The Dixon kid is shivering, or maybe trembling is the better word, staring straight ahead like he feels and sees nothing.

“Dixon,” Rick says, squatting down and shining a flashlight on him, the beam aimed at his neck so it doesn’t blind him. With the light on him, Rick can see dry flecks of red around the creases of his skin, in the corners of his eyes, around his mouth. “Daryl.” The name finally comes to him.

Blue eyes stare forward at nothing. The trembling looks even worse up close. So does the rest of him.

Slowly, Rick circles him, shining the flashlight at his clothes and skin. Everything is red. His torn shirt is a deep maroon. His jeans are stained burgundy. Rick can’t fathom or wrap his head around where that much blood could have come from or why on earth it’s everywhere. Even if he’d cut a man straight through the jugular, it would have splatter patterns. Rick may not be in forensics, but he knows this is weird. Beyond weird, even. This is fucking bizarre in a way that makes his skin crawl, the primal part of him recoiling from whatever this means, even as his logical side starts thinking about how to proceed.

It takes an hour for him to get someone from Fulton County on the phone. It takes another two hours for them to get there, the sun nearly up when they arrive. Daryl doesn’t move the whole time, doesn’t react to Rick having his people cordon off the area, to having them comb through the woods for a body or something else. The only change he undergoes is that he finally stops trembling. Statue still in the pale indigo of morning, he looks even more like a night terror come to life.

“Well fuck me sideways.” It’s the first thing the forensics guy from Fulton says after introducing himself as Ford, Abraham. “I can see why you called.”

They don’t have their own forensics lab in King County. Shit, why would they? It isn’t murder-free; nowhere is. But they usually have a pretty good idea what happens when someone in King County dies before their time. The perpetrator always comes down to drugs or some asshole husband. Or some wife who’s finally had enough of her asshole husband. They don’t have things like serial killers or random people coming out of the woods looking like an extra in a Rob Zombie movie.

Until they do.

“He dangerous?” Ford asks, and Rick glances at him when he speaks. He looks like he could hold his own even if Daryl is dangerous. He’s broad-bodied and muscular with cut ginger hair that screams ex-military. In fact, he looks like he should be in police blues instead of a sterile white bodysuit, booties, and gloves.

“Maybe,” Rick says, because it’s what he should say. He hasn’t bothered cuffing him, hasn’t decided if he will. But Daryl has kneed more than one officer in the balls over the years. He even gave Shane a black eye once in high school. Anyone who could successfully land a blow on Shane Walsh has to be at least a little dangerous. If he ever comes to, anyway. “He hasn’t moved or said anything.”

“The whole time?”

“I don’t know what he’s seen or done,” Rick says. “Other than it wasn’t good.”

“That’s a bit like licking the inside of a gas station toilet and saying it tastes like shit, don’t you think?”

Rick doesn’t respond, letting his mind go back to working on what might have happened. Maybe it’s animal blood. The Dixon boys are avid hunters, at least half of their rap sheets simple trespassing charges. But Jesus, there’s so much of it.

Abraham steps forward and opens his little silver briefcase. Little by little, he starts to wipe Daryl down, carefully collecting every blue paper towel in evidence bags. It’s a long, thorough process, but he chips away at all the horror, red skin slowly giving way to a golden tan.

As he painstakingly collects every shred of potential evidence, Rick’s officers trickle back in from the woods. Nearly every one of them comes back empty-handed except Chambler.

“I think it’s the trail, boss man,” she says. It’s weird seeing her without candy, though he knows she’s too professional to risk contaminating a crime scene. Still, he’s so used to her having licorice or one of the lollipops from the jar on her desk, so accustomed to being talked to around a stick or red candy braids.

Everything about this day is weird.

“You good here for a minute?” Rick asks Ford. Having scraped samples from under each of Daryl’s fingernails, he’s starting on the seemingly impossible task of collecting evidence from his hair.

“If he stays like this,” Ford says. “Still gonna be a while.”

“I’ll be back in a few.”

Rick follows Chambler while she points out the trail she’s found so far. More blood, the sheer amount seeming more and more impossible as it racks up. There’s a smear on some leaves here, thick gloopy drops on the ground there. They follow and follow, right to the barbed wire fence enclosing the Greene property.

“There’s more,” she says, walking toward the nearest wooden post and pointing at the wire beside it. Blood. There’s two dried patches on the top wire, more on the wires underneath, and Rick doesn’t need to analyze it closely or confer with Ford to know Daryl hopped the fence. He’ll have to check him for cuts or scrapes when he gets back, try to figure out how to find out if he’s had a tetanus shot recently. But right now, he has to follow the trail.

Sighing, he puts his foot on the bottom wire and pushes it down, gesturing for Chambler to go through. When she’s through to the other side, she does the same for him.

There’s another half-mile or so of trail leading to the highway that curves back into town. This part is slower going as Chambler hasn’t already mentally marked it. The blood leads them right up to the asphalt. And then nothing. The other side is clean. The highway itself is clean. It’s like someone dumped Daryl bloody on the side of the road. Rick wonders if there’s a car somewhere out there covered in the stuff. If someone is driving around with a mobile swimming pool full of it. Half his thoughts are ludicrous and he knows it, but he needs to have them. He needs to keep thinking. He needs to have a drink and and never think again.

Together, he and Tara walk back to their makeshift base camp, streaming yellow police tape through the woods behind them. Abraham is still working on the dried clumps that are Daryl’s hair when they get back.

“Basset,” Rick says, “I want...” Rick pauses, remembering Basset is a fucking moron. “Anyone got a map?”

Chambler spreads the map over a tree stump. Rick can smell the artificial grape of her lollipop where he stands. For once, he wants one too. Something to keep his mouth occupied while he tries to think. Every crime is a puzzle, but this one is 200,000 pieces with no picture. And so damn many of them are missing.

“I want you to drive out here,” Rick says, following the trail on the map with his finger as best as he can, stopping it around where the trail goes cold. “You’ll see the tape. I want a presence until we get pictures and samples or whatever Ford needs.”

He knows the kids in town because he used to be one of the kids in town. Restless, always restless. The bright yellow tape would be an invitation, a siren calling to them and begging them to investigate. And when word got out, and it always got out, that Daryl Dixon had come out of the woods looking like the end of times, well, there’s no way they’d leave it alone. He and Shane wouldn’t have.

“What else?” Williams asks, standing up. Sometime during the long morning, the Greene family had brought out lawn chairs and pitchers of water and lemonade.

Rick holds his hand up then runs it through the dense waves of his hair. They’re messy and unkempt, just like the rest of him after his unexpected wake up call. He knows there’s more they need to do. He feels it.

But what?

A road, a trail, a man. Blood, so much blood.

“I don’t guess you’ll stand up if I ask,” Ford says, and Rick looks back over at Daryl. He’s still a mess, his clothes starting to look more and more brown as the hours tick by and the blood dries and oxidizes in the air. Daryl hasn’t eaten or even pissed. Rick wonders if that’s normal for someone in a state of shock. Rick wonders a lot of things.

As prophesied, Daryl doesn’t move.

“I’m going to need his clothes,” Ford says, looking back at Rick. “I can cut them off, but I’m guessing even if he doesn’t give a monkey’s left nut now, he might eventually get a little upset at being stripped naked in front of all you fine people.”

“Yeah,” Rick says. “Probably.”

He approaches Daryl again, slowly waves his hand in front of his face. Not even a flinch.

“Williams,” he says, looking back at Sasha. He finally has a “what else.”

“Sir?”

“Find a therapist. A real one with a degree,” Rick says. “I want them waiting at the station when we eventually get him there.”

“Will do.”

“Daryl.” Rick never would’ve imagined getting the chance to speak so softly to a Dixon while he had his badge on, especially not when it’s at least somewhat possible that particular Dixon may have killed someone. He places his hand gently on Daryl’s neck. And it’s an awkward place to touch him, but it’s one of the places Ford has already cleaned. He can’t contaminate the evidence there. “Daryl,” he says again, gently pressing his fingers into the skin.

Nothing.

“Alright,” Rick says. “That’s alright. We’re gonna pick you up?” He looks back at Ford and raises an eyebrow, asking if picking him up is alright or if it’ll risk something. Ford is the one who knows about what kind of forensics fuckups might ruin a court case if there is one, not Rick in his small town where most of their trials are for drugs or DWIs.

Ford nods.

“I think he’s dry, but if he gets anything on you, I’ll have to take your clothes too.”

“Do I get ‘em back?” Rick asks. The white tee shirt is already fucked just from traipsing through the woods and climbing through rusty barbed wire. But his favorite black jeans, that would feel like losing a lifelong friend.

“When we’re done, sure,” Abraham said.

“Alright,” Rick says. Rick puts on gloves and they hook Daryl under both arms and lift him off the fallen log, both of them gently tugging him toward...where exactly?

“Otis, where can we take him? We just need a little privacy.”

“The barn is close.”

So they tug him toward the barn. Daryl walks, his steps practically animatronic. They don’t make it more than two feet before Rick hears the sickening sound of his shoes squelching, and he looks down to see trails oozing over the sides. Abraham stops and tapes plastic bags over his feet so that any evidence inside doesn’t leak out onto the ground. The trail of blood in the dirt starts to make a little more sense. Rick wishes all of it made sense at the same time that he wishes none of it did.

“Chambler,” Rick calls back at her. She jogs up, her grape lollipop gone, leaving nothing but a stained plastic stick behind.

“Yeah, boss?” she says around it. It reminds him of those old movies where men had all their conversations around stalks of wheat.

“There’s a bag in my trunk.” Rick hands her his keys. “Bring it to the barn.”

Tara throws him lazy salute and jogs off.

It’s much easier to get Daryl to the barn than Rick expected when they started. He’d figured on dead weight, the two of them having to drag him the whole way there like a corpse. With him mindlessly following their pulls and nudges, they get there in a couple of minutes.

Abraham starts with the shoes, the two of them sitting Daryl down on a wooden milking stool. The insides of them are soaked, and Daryl’s socks are a deep red, glistening with moisture in the light. Ford puts the evidence bags over them before he even starts to pull them off, the action alone wringing liquid out of the hole-ridden cotton. It oozes down the sides of the bag.

Sometime during the time Ford takes to wipe Daryl’s foot clean, Chambler comes back with the bag. It’s Rick’s gym bag. Which means it’s Rick’s bag he keeps in the car so he can convince himself he actually might go to the gym someday. It means nothing really, nothing except a vague good intention that never comes to fruition for one reason or another. It’s a New Year’s Resolution tucked inside of red mesh.

He pulls the sweatpants and tee shirt out of the bag. The tee shirt will be a tight squeeze, but it’s better than leaving Daryl naked.

When the socks are done, Ford stands up, glancing down at Rick's hands. Rick assumes he's making sure he still has gloves on. 

“I think we can get him undressed, mostly, without having to get the scissors out.”

Rick nods then looks at Daryl, searching out his eyes even though they’re miles away from anything happening there at the Greene farm. Briefly, Rick hopes they’re somewhere nice. Because his fault or not, whatever Daryl has gone through was clearly terrible. 

“We’re gonna undress you,” Rick says. “We gotta have your clothes.”

Informing him seems like the polite thing to do before he strips someone he barely knows, someone Ford doesn’t know at all, down to his birthday suit. Even if he isn’t really listening.

Warning given, Rick helps Abraham get Daryl to his feet again. There’s a pause during which Rick feels Ford’s hesitation at what they're about to do even if it is procedural, the mild threat to his masculinity making him recoil just enough that it’s clear he’d rather Rick do it. So Rick does it, reaching for the button of Daryl's jeans. And even though Daryl isn’t the first man he’s ever stripped naked with his own two hands, doing it like this makes Rick just as uncomfortable as Ford. It’s so clinical. So joyless. 

“I’ll clean his legs,” Ford says, when Daryl’s nude from the waist down, his pants and underwear both stuffed in plastic bags. There are so many bags. “You wanna get the shirt?”

“Yeah,” Rick says. He stands up and starts on the buttons. It’s clear it was once a full shirt by the strings hanging around the shoulder area. Rick wonders if Daryl ripping the sleeves off is part of his bad boy image or if he has to do it. With shoulders that broad, he imagines he’d have a hard time fitting in a button-down otherwise. Rick works it down his muscular arms and bags it.

"Jesus," Ford says from behind Daryl. And Rick circles around, expecting a clue that might help him fit the story together. And maybe it is one, and maybe it isn't. 

Deep mauve scars cover Daryl's back in a crosshatch pattern of violence. And he remembers all the rumors about the Dixon boys' dad, rumors that had intensified after the fire. His stomach lurches with something like regret because Will Dixon's long-dead and there's nothing Rick can do now to make this any better. In all his years on the force, he's never figured out what bothers him more: the times he fails to help or the times he's simply too late. 

"Do you see anything else?" Rick asks, trying to give Daryl the dignity of not staring at his past trauma. "I think he hopped the barbwire fence."

"Just blood," Ford says, ripping off another blue paper towel. "I've never seen anything like it." 

With Daryl nude, whatever brief hiccup Ford felt is gone, and he goes back to methodically swabbing every inch of his skin. The man has probably never been so clean in his whole life. Hell, no one probably has. Ford even swabs the crack of his ass.

“Sorry, but I have to go under the danglies too,” Ford says, before lifting Daryl’s balls much like a doctor, working the cotton swab underneath and along the perineum. Not a single swab or paper towel comes away without at least being tinted pink. There’s no single surface on Daryl’s body that didn’t have blood on it. Not one.

Yet again, Rick thinks that it’s like he went swimming in it.

“One more, because it just occurred to me that he might, yep,” Ford says, pulling a cotton swab out of Daryl’s ear. Jesus, it's in his fucking ears.  

“That’ll do it,” Ford says. “I’m gonna have a sandwich, and then we’ll take a look at that trail you found.”

“Chambler will show you,” Rick says, unfurling the sweat pants. “I’m gonna take him to the station.”

As with the rest of the day, Daryl does or says nothing while Rick dresses him and walks him out to the driveway. He debates putting Daryl in the back of the cruiser, but decides against it, nudging him down into the passenger seat instead.

“I’m taking Dixon back to the station,” he says over the radio. “Chambler’s in charge. Do whatever Ford needs you to do. Basset, don’t leave until you’re told.”

There’s a brief crackle of static, and then voices start chiming in with “got it” and “will do, boss.”

Rick reaches over to buckle Daryl’s seatbelt and pulls out of the Greene driveway.


	2. Screams in the Winter

Rick puts Daryl in the holding cell. He tells him he’s not under arrest.

Daryl says nothing.

Truth be told, Rick has no idea what to do with him. The therapist Sasha brings is a soft-spoken woman who introduces herself as Dr. Cloyd but invites Daryl to call her Denise. Rick fills her in on what he knows. They both ask Daryl to fill in the rest, but Rick knows he won’t. Maybe she does too and is just trying for the sake of it.

She agrees he’s in some kind of shock, that he may have disassociated altogether. She explains to Rick that the whole day may have played out like someone else’s dream for him. But she doesn’t know for sure.

Rick asks her questions. When will he come back from whatever this is? The human brain, apparently, is a fucking mystery. Everything is wait and see.

In the end, it’s the holding cell or a hospital, because Daryl sure as hell can’t go home in such a state. Rick can’t bring himself to foist him off on someone else, to send Daryl somewhere they’ll strap him to the bed and feed him through a tube. He doesn’t know why he wants to protect someone who may very well be a murder suspect, but he does.

Deep mauve scars etch themselves a little deeper into his mind, slicing their way through the gray matter until the patterns match exactly.

Sleep fixes a lot of things, Rick knows.

“You have to drink,” Rick says, a mug of water in his hand. He tries a straw at first, hopes putting it in Daryl’s mouth will see him doing the rest on autopilot, but it doesn’t. So he tips his head back and tests what happens when he pours a little in. Daryl swallows, and Rick can work with that. He slowly tips a mug of water down his throat and then another, with the knowledge that Daryl hasn’t had anything since before Hershel found him on his property.

He tries food next, tearing up little pieces of sandwich bread and sliding them between Daryl’s lips. It feels a little bit ridiculous to be feeding a grown man, but Daryl swallows. So he gets two slices of bread and some apple sauce in him.

Satisfied he won’t die before the next day, Rick takes him to the cell and coaxes him onto the cot. He doesn’t know if Daryl will sleep or if he’s even capable. Rick even contemplates giving him some cough syrup or a melatonin or something. But he knows he can’t do that, that it would be a potential lawsuit even if he doesn’t think Daryl would file charges. If Daryl even remembers. So he leaves him on the cot, makes sure he’s has a good pillow and blanket, stuff they wouldn’t normally give a perp.

“Don’t put anyone else in that cell with him,” Rick tells Espinosa, already heading for the showers where he scrubs away dirt and sweat and the feeling that he’s covered in blood even though he isn’t. The metallic smell of clings to the insides of his nose, and he can’t seem to wash that down the drain though he tries, tries until his nose is sore and his skin is tender.

He sleeps in the station that night, hunched over his desk with his head on folded arms.

It’s 4 a.m.—how is it always 4 a.m.?—when Daryl starts screaming.

The only person there besides Rick is the dispatcher, Rhee, standing beside the radio and staring at Rick wide-eyed and clueless. He’s barely out of college, and chances are he’s heard about what happened from the other officers. Rick doesn’t blame him for being afraid.

“I got him,” Rick says, and Rhee doesn’t seem to have any problem with not being the one to “get him.”

He pulls open the door of the holding cell and finds Daryl thrashing on the bed. His screams are murder, complete terror all coming out in shrill desperate sounds that Rick wasn’t sure a man could even make until this moment. He sounds inhuman. 

Rick blinks and sees blood. So much blood. He blinks again and it’s gone.

“Daryl,” he says, approaching the cot. It squeaks with every wild flail of Daryl’s limbs. He knows he won’t wake up with a simple word. Somehow, he knows. Rick smells ammonia and wrinkles his nose. Daryl isn’t the first or last person who’ll piss themselves in one of their holding cells.

Waiting for a break in the chaos, Rick dives in and pins his arms, shaking him by the shoulders.

“Daryl.”

Nothing. The chaos continues, unbroken and destructive, feet kicking wildly, wildly, wildly. Rick takes a bare foot to the thigh and hisses but holds on.

When he was a boy, he had a different colt than the one he wears with his badge. A feral young thing that bucked and raised hell every time Rick even tried to touch him. Rick has been kicked by wild things before.

Even as he shakes with the effort of holding Daryl down, he thinks.

And then he hooks him around his rib cage and drags him out of the bed, tugging him down the hallway outside the cell. Daryl actually feels like a Dixon in that moment, kicking and screaming, his heels dragging across the concrete while Rick pulls him farther from the cot. But there’s none of the spirit, none of the swears and curses and surprisingly biting wit that the officers would talk about almost fondly when they weren’t in the room.

“I’m sorry about this,” Rick says, because he is, more than sorry even. Frowning, he lets Daryl drop onto the damp floor of the showers before grabbing the knob on the cold tap and turning it as far as it'll go. 

Icicles fall from the sky. Daryl sputters and goes still. For a moment there is peace and quiet in the winter rain.

Blue eyes flash open in an instant, two endless pools spiraling down into eternity. Daryl isn’t miles away, not like before. They see Rick’s face first and then his badge, still pinned to his waist. Rick feels something like relief when he looks into them and finds something other than nothing.

“You,” Daryl growls, lurching forward. And Rick braces himself for a punch or a tackle or Lord only knows what, because he wasn’t expecting him to come at him and doesn’t even have time to react other than to throw his arms up defensively.

But Daryl does none of those things. Instead his fingers claw at the front of his shirt, digging into the fabric and clutching at it like its his sole connection to reality, to being alive. Rick’s breath hitches.

“You have to stop it,” Daryl says, a little too loud for the confined space of the men’s locker room. “You have to stop it.” It’s louder still. Over and over and over again, until he’s yelling it at the top of his lungs, stretching out the front of Rick’s shirt and scraping at the skin underneath.

“Stop what?” Rick asks repeatedly. But all he gets is Daryl screaming in his face in return. He’s hoarse before he stops, so hoarse Rick can’t believe he’s not coughing blood onto the floor.

“Okay,” Rick finally says, at a complete loss on what else to do. “Okay.” Daryl calms, falls face-first into his chest sobbing violently, and Rick pets his wet hair in an attempt to soothe him. His hand comes away red.

His eyelids shut and open once, and his palm is peach once more.

“Okay,” he says one more time. Against him, Daryl has starting shivering, or is he trembling again?

He adds stopping something to his pile of puzzle pieces. He doesn’t feel like it puts him any closer to anything.  

“Maybe you could talk to me,” Rick says. “What am I supposed to stop?”

But when he finds Daryl’s eyes, he’s gone again, as blank and empty as Rick’s well of answers. The robot comes back, letting Rick dry him off and put him into a dry King County sweatsuit. Gently, Rick coaxes him back into bed in a different holding cell with a dry cot, smoothes the wet hair off his forehead.

Maybe he’ll talk with a little more sleep. Or maybe he’ll scream again.

Either way Rick feels his chest tightening a little more every time he thinks about the situation. Back at the farm, he felt something terrible had happened. Now he thinks maybe he was hoping too much when he put his thoughts in past-tense.

Something terrible  _is_  happening.

A road, a trail, a man. Blood, so much blood.

But what?


	3. Rush

Daryl wakes up in a jail cell. He has no clue how he got there. 

Groaning quietly at his surroundings, he sits up. It’s been almost ten years since he’s seen the inside of one of these things. Everything feels weird about it, and he’s not sure why. He’s woken up in jail cells before, head pounding, with no memory of being arrested, usually after some bender with his brother.

Maybe that’s the problem though. His head feels fine. How could he have gotten blackout drunk to wake up headache-free without even the tiniest desire to vomit? He still feels like shit, exhausted to his core, but he doesn’t feel like he overindulged. Though his mouth is dry, making him acutely aware that he’d like something to drink as soon as possible. Back when Monroe was the sheriff, she would let them have actual water from the tap instead of making them drink from the cell's dirty sink that literally sits on top of the toilet. He wonders if the new management is as kind as he kicks the blankets off and stands up to take a leak.

What the hell is he wearing?

Daryl looks down at the gray King County Sheriff’s Department sweatsuit and has even more questions. Where are his clothes? Did someone take pity on him after he chucked all over himself? Did they pick him up stark naked? Did they see...?

There’s a vague flash of blue fingers working at the buttons on his shirt, but it slips away like sand. It doesn’t make sense anyway. Blue fingers aren’t a thing.

“Hey,” he says, getting the attention of the dark-haired woman passing his cell. Her name tag reads T. Chambler. Her lollipop smells like cherry cough syrup.

When she turns to him, she’s wide-eyed, like a doe realizing she’s being watched.

“Can you tell me what I’m in here for?” Daryl asks, trying not to come off harsh. He’s been over the idea that him getting locked up is anyone’s fault but his own for a long time.

“Oh jeez,” she says. “Okay.”

Neither of those is an answer to Daryl’s question.

“Look, I ain’t tryin to kick up a fuss. I just wanna know what I did.”

“I’ll, um, one second.” She points away from the cell toward the bullpen and then she’s gone.

Daryl hears the sheriff before he sees him, his footfalls much faster than seems necessary for a simple drunk and disorderly. Jesus, what has he done?

“Daryl,” he says, somehow managing to sound relieved. He looks like he spent the night on a bender himself, his clothes wrinkled, his loose curls messy from the crown of his head down to where they curl around the collar of a simple black tee shirt. Worn black jeans hug his hips and lightly hug his bow legs all the way down to his leather boots. Daryl remembers punching Shane Walsh in high school for telling a whole group of boys what he’d done to Rick Grimes.

“Glad to have you back among the living,” Rick says.

Ice and a gold star. Daryl shakes away the thought.

“Mind telling me what I did?” Daryl asks.

“How about we talk?” Rick pulls the cell door open without unlocking it, meaning it was never locked to begin with. 

Confused, Daryl follows Rick to the interrogation room. He can feel every eye in the station on them as they pass through.

“Before we get started, do you need anything?” Rick asks. “Water? Sandwich? I can probably get you a sucker or some licorice.”

“Yeah,” Daryl says. He feels like he hasn’t had a proper drink or meal in days. “Sounds good.”

Rick opens the door and calmly orders the nearest person to get a water and a pb&j and “whatever Chambler’s willing to share.” He turns back and sits across from Daryl at the steel table. He doesn’t cuff him.

“So, Officer Friendly,” Daryl says, cringing at the way Merle’s words tumble out of his mouth so easily. He loves his brother and always will, but he still doesn’t want to be him for even a second. “What was I charged with?”

Rick’s brows knit together, creasing his forehead. Those blue eyes that used to be able to unravel Daryl from across a room without even knowing it look downright concerned.

“I wasn’t sure you’d remember,” Rick says. “But I told you more than once last night that you weren’t under arrest.”

“Then why am I here?” Daryl asks, before looking at his outfit. “And where are my clothes?”

Rick sighs and runs a hand through his hair. A young woman with jet black hair and deep brown eyes interrupts with food, water, and a half-eaten pack of Twizzlers.

“Thanks, Espinosa,” Rick says, dismissing her with a wave of his hand that comes off more exhaustion than laziness. Rick slides the sandwich to him and watches him devour it, his brow wrinkling at the taste. Daryl hates strawberry jelly with a passion, but the emptiness inside of him doesn’t care.

It goes down in three bites, washed down with gulps of water. Daryl wants to ask for another mug, but he doesn’t, pulling out a stick of licorice and biting the end off of it instead.

“You don’t remember anything, do you?” Rick asks, and the way he says it sends a chill down Daryl’s body. He sets the candy down.

“Remember what?”

“Goddamn’t,” Rick says, slamming his palm down on the table. Daryl flinches, the noise and sheer force of the outburst startling, especially coming from him. The Rick Grimes he remembers doesn’t rile easily.

“Sorry,” Daryl says. He shrinks back into his seat instinctively, feeling like both a coward and an idiot when he realizes that he’s done it.

Rick doesn’t respond, not at first. His fingers go back through his waves again. They catch there and stay, squeezing tufts of soft brown while he stares down at the table between them. There are circles under his eyes.

“Do you remember being on Hershel Greene’s property yesterday?” Rick asks, dropping his hand down onto one of his thighs.

“That what you got me for? Trespassin?” Daryl asks. Rick may have said he wasn’t under arrest, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t pick him up for something and just decide to let him sleep it off instead of bothering with the paperwork.

Cops and their damn paperwork.

“Is that a no?” Rick asks.

“No.”

“Fuck.” He gets up and leaves the room. And Daryl knows he could probably get up and walk right out of the station, but he also knows he can’t. He picks up the Twizzler and starts tearing it into tiny pieces, red sticking to his fingers.

Red. The whole world is red. And then it isn’t.

Rick comes back with a stack of papers in his hands. Only they aren’t papers. Daryl can make out the little “Kodak” logo running across the back.  

“I don’t think you’re gonna wanna see these,” Rick says. “But there are too many questions we need answers to and you’re the only person who has ‘em right now.”

“Okay,” Daryl says, scooting aside his pile of torn up candy.

Rick flips through the photos, chooses one, and slides it across the tabletop. Daryl stares down at it, the trees, the lone figure on the log covered head to toe. It takes him a long time to realize he's the subject in the photo. 

“Well,” Rick says, his voice already fading away. The walls get smaller and smaller and Daryl hears a rushing sound in his ears. He thinks about when he was a boy and his pa threw him into the pond under the pretense of teaching him how to swim. The water had flown past him as he sank into the icy blackness, his sneakers tangling in the moss at the bottom. It was January, and Will Dixon had looked genuinely disappointed when he made it back to shore, shivering and crying.

Daryl stands up and backs away from the picture, but he can’t stop looking, even as he presses against the wall. The rushing gets louder, and he covers his ears.

Someone says, “no” once, then again, and again.

It’s not until Rick flips the picture over and pulls it away that Daryl realizes the “no” is his. Slowly, he sits back down. He picks up a Twizzler and holds it just to keep his hands from shaking. He wants a cigarette even though he quit over a decade ago. He wants violence. He wants to forget.

But he’s already forgotten.

“Daryl,” Rick says softly, the stack of photos turned over on his side of the table. Rick reaches across and lays his hand over his wrist. Daryl doesn’t flinch away.

“Rick.” His voice is hoarse and the word comes out in a croak. “Do I… Should I get a lawyer?”

He’s never seen that much blood in his life, not even the buckets of it drained out of a freshly-killed buck. Except he has seen that much blood. He just can’t remember.

Rick squeezes his arm and pulls his hand away.

“Honestly, Daryl, I have no idea.”

“Where are my clothes?” he asks, though he already has an unsettling suspicion regarding their whereabouts. It’s not the fact that they’re missing that bothers him though. It’s the vague memory of blue fingers running down his torso.

“In a forensics lab somewhere in Atlanta,” Rick says. “Any chance it could just… I know you boys like to hunt.”

You boys. Will Daryl ever be anything but “you boys”?

“Maybe.” But he knows it’s not even as he says it. And he knows Rick knows too. Being covered in animal blood wouldn’t have horrified Daryl so completely.

They fall quiet. Daryl destroys another Twizzler. Rick offers him more water and leaves to get it, taking the pictures with him. Daryl’s glad he doesn’t show him the rest.

“Was it you?” Daryl says, choking down a sip after Rick sinks back down in the metal chair. As thirsty as he was before, he can barely force it down now. But it’s something to do, something to fill the silences between their words.

“Was it me what?”

“I think I remember something,” he says, and Rick perks up a little in his seat, clearly hoping for answers to what Daryl can only assume is a veritable mountain of questions.

“What?”

“Did someone take my clothes off me?” Daryl feels like a child again when he says the words, small and pitiful.

If Rick is frustrated by the fact that this is all he remembers, he doesn’t say so, not this time anyway.

“I did.” He lightly taps his fingers on the table top. “You weren’t responding. To anything or anyone.”

“Just you?” Daryl asks. He’s embarrassed and mortified, but out of all the possible cops who might have done it, the thought of Rick doing it horrifies him the least.

“The forensics guy from Atlanta, he had to,” Rick looks down, “he had to clean you up.”

“Clean...” Daryl trails off. He knows what Rick means but he doesn’t want to. All that blood was potential evidence, meaning someone had to wipe it all off him, bag it, and tag it. He feels a pang of profound anxiety, both at the idea of having some stranger wash him and at the prospect of maybe going to prison forever for something he can’t even remember doing.  

And his back. They had seen his back, all the evidence of everything his daddy had ever done to him. All the times Daryl hadn’t fought back. Rick Grimes has seen that.

“Daryl.” Rick’s voice is soft as honey, gentle and coaxing. “Do you remember anything else?”

“Ice,” Daryl says, before realizing how stupid that sounds. “I mean, it was cold. There was a star.”

Rick taps his fingers on the tabletop again, tilts his head and chews over that bit of information.

“You think it was maybe this?” he asks, raising a little bit out of his seat to show off the badge on his hip. He tugs his shirt far enough out of the way to reveal a small patch of pale skin right above the waistline of his jeans.  

“Maybe.” Daryl swallows. “Probably.”

Rick nods.

“It might have been the shower then,” he says.

“Show-shower?” Daryl stutters.

“You started screaming in your sleep. Wouldn’t wake and I didn’t know what else to do. Set you down in the shower and turned it on cold.”

“Oh.”

“And then you came at me,” Rick says. “Honestly thought you were gonna sock me.”

Daryl wonders if Rick remembers him punching Shane. He wonders if Rick ever knew why he did it or if Shane had just painted him as another Dixon boy prone to fits of violence.

“Sorry,” Daryl says.

“But you grabbed me by the shirt instead and started yellin.”

“What did I say?”

“That I had to stop something. Over and over. You wouldn’t tell me what, wouldn’t stop until I said ‘okay.’”

Daryl looks down at the silver tabletop, tracing the smoothness of it with his finger while he watches the reflection of his hand warp and change in the surface. He can feel it, a deep and profound dread sinking into the pit of his stomach and settling into his bones. When he looks back up at Rick, he sees that feeling mirrored in matching blue eyes.

And in that instant, he knows that whatever it was, it was done to him and not by him.

“I didn’t do it,” he blurts out, the twisted image of a 5-year-old caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “I don’t know how, but I just...”

“Yeah,” Rick says, nodding. “Yeah, I know.”

The fact that Rick believes him is a relief, though both of them know there’s only so much Rick can do to keep Daryl from drowning if the currents start to drag him out to sea. The room falls silent again, the sheriff and the victim. Of what, neither of them know.

“We had a therapist come in and talk to you yesterday, or try to anyway,” Rick says. “I’d like you to see her again. You remembering might be the only way we figure this thing out.”

“Can’t afford no therapist,” Daryl says, feeling ashamed and stupid when the words come out. He hates admitting his financial situation even though he knows he shouldn’t. He takes care of himself and his bills, after all, like a responsible damn adult. He just can’t do much else.

“You don’t have to. If she’s helping with an active investigation, then she’s on the county's payroll.”

“Okay,” Daryl says. But none of it feels okay. And he’s not sure he wants to remember whatever it is the therapist might help pull out of him. The rushing noise comes back, and he takes a sip of water he doesn’t actually want just to push it away.

“You can go home now if you want,” Rick says. “I can’t think of anything else to ask you that you’ll actually have an answer for right now.”

“Okay,” Daryl says. His own bed and his own clothes will be comforting if nothing else. Hell, even Merle grating on his every last nerve will feel better than dwelling on the photo of that otherworldly monster covered in crimson and rust.  

“C’mon, I’ll give you a ride.” 

Back at the rented trailer, Rick gives him two things: a business card and a plain composition book with an abstract black and white cover.

“Do me a favor and write down anything you happen to remember,” Rick says. “Even if you’re not sure it actually happened or even if it doesn’t make sense.”

Blue eyes implore Daryl, and he can’t say no. Even if having a diary full of nightmares is the last thing he wants. For a moment he’s sixteen again, watching Rick across the cafeteria, Walsh’s hand sitting possessively on his shoulder.

Daryl has always thought it was a testament to the high school reputations of Rick Grimes and Shane Walsh that no one had given a shit what they were. He wishes he’d had the same luxury.

“Call me too,” Rick says. “My cell’s there. But write it all down in case I can’t talk right away.” 

Daryl takes both items from him but doesn’t say anything. Rick doesn’t let him off that easy.

“Alright?”

No, he’s not. But that’s not what Rick means.

“Okay,” Daryl agrees, halfheartedly holding up the notebook.

“And Dixon,” Rick calls, stopping Daryl in his tracks on the small set of cement stairs that lead to the single-wide. He tries not to let the fact that Rick calls him Dixon and not Daryl make something throb painfully inside him. All he’s ever wanted is to just be Daryl.

“Sheriff,” Daryl says.

“I don’t think I need to tell you not to leave Georgia. The county, really, unless you have work.”

Daryl nods once. He doesn’t tell Rick he’s actually never left Georgia before in his life and certainly wouldn’t up and decide to now. He wants to, especially that part of him that likes to bitterly spit things in the face of people better off than he has ever been. But Rick hasn’t done anything to deserve that. And bitterness has never gotten him anywhere. Bitterness is “Dixon” and “you boys” and not “Daryl.”

Rick looks like he wants to say something else, his blue eyes softening, but whatever it is dies before it leaves his mouth. He turns and walks back to the cruiser and waits patiently while Daryl tries the front door, then hunts for the spare key. Rick doesn’t leave until he’s safe and sound inside.

Inside, Daryl takes two steps into his and Merle’s small kitchen and vomits in the sink.


	4. Needles

Rick goes straight home from Daryl’s, or he intends to anyway. But when he comes to the four-way stop, he goes straight instead of turning left.

He’s tightly wound, the tension of this case and of all the things he doesn’t know settling deep within his shoulders. When Rick’s wound up, he makes mistakes.

Shane smirks at him when he answers the door. He knows Rick only visits for one reason these days, and he finds humor in it in the most twisted way that only Shane can. It’s been years since Rick told him to go straight to hell, but he always comes back even if it’s only for this.

If Rick thinks hard on it, he can remember a time when he’s sure they loved each other. In high school, everything had run so hot. After graduation, their lives had split but they hadn’t. Rick and Shane had shared rides to the community college while Shane learned to weld and Rick learned to Mirandize. Rick knows they had to have been something more even if all he has now is this bitter, simmering hatred. He can distinctly remember how much it hurt to know he could never legally marry him.

Before he found out Shane’s ego was too big for him to keep his cock in his pants. Before he found out about Lori and Caesar and others whose names have faded into the halls of forgotten memories.

They could get married now, but Rick would rather die.

“Howdy there sheriff, what can I do you for?” Shane asks. Rick remembers a time when he used to think Shane’s mouth was actually charming. He hates that he always comes here.

“Do you have to talk?”

“C’mon now, Rick, you know damn well what merchandise is in stock before you come into the store.”

Rick tilts his head, exhales through his nose, and considers getting into the cruiser and driving off. But he won’t and he knows it and that pisses him off more.

His shoulders are so tight. His everything is so tight.

He pushes past Shane without being invited and pops open the button of his jeans.

 

As always, he slaps Shane’s hand away when he reaches for his ass. Once upon a time, Rick would've bent right over and took it, sometimes so hard that it hurt. Shane had convinced him that he wanted it that way and that way alone, that it was how they were made to fit. And maybe if he'd been given a real choice, Rick would've even enjoyed it. But these days, he can't even stomach the thought. All the associations in his head skew negative and he hates that he might never know how he would've chosen to get off if he'd been allowed to actually choose.   
  
“Damn, you’re touchy today," Shane says. 

“Fuck you.”

“Thought that’s why you were here?”

The fact that Rick won’t bottom for him anymore has complicated whatever fucked up arrangement it is he and Shane have. Somedays, Rick isn’t even sure Shane likes men at all or if he just doesn’t care so long as there’s a hole he can stick his dick in.

Rick never gives him that satisfaction anymore, and it’s maybe the only thing that lets him sleep at night after he does this.

“Just once, for old time’s sake,” Shane says, reaching for Rick’s ass once more.

“One more time, Walsh, and I’m gonna break your nose again.”

Rick used to find it endearing, but Shane hates his nose, the misshapen lump in the middle from where Daryl Dixon broke it in high school. Rick shakes that thought away as fast as it comes. Thinking about Daryl is the last thing he needs to do right now.

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill.”

It’s not sex, not in any traditional sense. Rick’s sure if he wanted to turn over rocks on the internet, there’s probably a word for what they do, but mutual masturbation works enough for him. And it’s an easy enough thing for him to live with when it’s said and done. Or an  _easier_  thing, at any rate.

Black jeans around his knees, he leans against the wall beside Shane’s front door and wraps his hand around both their cocks. Shane does the same.

They don’t look at each other. Rick rests his chin on Shane’s shoulder and stares at the outdated wood paneling, thrusting into both their hands. The world flashes red, and he thrusts harder, the head of his erection catching on one of Shane’s fingers, ripping a growl out of his throat.

“Yeah,” Shane says. And Rick wants to rip his Adam’s apple out with his teeth. Instead he squeezes his fingers tighter, pumps his hips faster.

“Shut up.”

He wants it to end, a thought that rewinds and replays with every slide of his cock along Shane’s. He wants it to be over. He wants it to be someone else, easier said than done in a town like theirs. He closes his eyes, pants heavily, lets his mind zero in on his release.

It’s cold and mechanical. Just like stripping Daryl down in that barn, it feels wrong. Rick reminds himself that it is wrong, that his relationship with Shane is the most fucked up part of his life.

Finish, he tells himself, just fucking finish.

And he does, his cock spurting out onto their hands and his jeans and the ugly emerald green carpet below. When it’s done, he pulls away and hitches up his pants, ignoring Shane’s protests of, “hey, I didn't cum,” as he walks outside and gets into the cruiser.

Like every time, he vows to himself that he’ll never come back again. Like every time, he knows it’s probably a lie, but he hopes it’ll stick.

Like every time, he doesn’t feel any damn better.

Sighing and ignoring Shane, who’s making an obscene gesture at him from the front porch with his dick still hanging out of his pants, Rick backs the cruiser out of the driveway.

When he gets home, he spreads the crime scene photos out over the kitchen island and stares at them, like if he looks long enough they’ll whisper all their secrets for him to hear.

They say nothing, but his cell phone rings.

“Sheriff Grimes?”

“Yeah,” Rick says, recognizing the gruff rough and tumble voice of Abraham Ford on the other end of the line.

“I’m still running all this shit, but I figured I’d give you an update.”

“I’ll take anything I can get,” Rick says. Anything to make sense of any of it. “Is the blood human?” He knows it is, knows even Daryl knows it is despite not being able to remember, but a small part of him still wants to hope.

“It is.”

“ID on it?” Rick asks, because it’s what he thinks he should ask. In reality, he has no clue how that shit works, and he hopes he doesn’t sound like some idiot who’s watched too many cop shows.

“That’ll take more time,” Ford says. “Databases and all that.”

“Okay.”

“But I can tell you it’s not just one.”

Rick sees red and whatever Ford says next is lost as the room tilts. He rights it as quick as he can, slamming his eyes shut and re-opening them over and over until the walls look normal again. He tells himself that he just needs to sleep and it’ll all be fine.

“What was that?” Rick asks. 

“I said I’ve found at least six different strands of DNA in there. It’s a damn mess.”

“Fuck,” Rick says, because what else can he say? He takes a breath and collects his thoughts, tries to do his job. “Do you know anything about them yet?”

“Well right now I’m just trying to figure out how many needles are in this damn haystack,” Ford says. “All I can tell you until I finish going through it all is that they’re a mix of male and female.”

“Yeah,” Rick says, picking up one of the photos of Daryl his officers snapped the day before. At least he has an answer now for how the hell there was so much of it. In his mind, he hears the squelch of Daryl’s shoes and he swallows back bile.

“Sheriff,” Ford says, and Rick gets the impression it’s not the first time he’s said it.

“Yeah?”

“You’re in a weird position there without any actual bodies, but I’d still wager you’ve only got a week or two before the feds start breathing down your neck.” There’s a whir of some kind of equipment, the sound of fingers flitting across a keyboard. “Just a heads up.”

“Thank you.”

“He say anything yet?” Ford asks, and Rick knows that has to be curiosity more than anything. That's not part of Ford's job description. 

“Not really.” It’s not exactly a lie.

“I tell you, sheriff, I’ve seen a lot of weird shit but this right here is a damn row of port-o-johns at an exotic food festival. Anyway, I’ll call you as soon as soon as I have something else you need to know.”

“’Preciate it.”

Ford hangs up first, the phone going completely quiet against Rick’s ear. He turns the photo around, like seeing it upside down will give him some kind of new perspective, but it makes no more sense than it did five seconds ago or five minutes ago or five hours ago

Six. Six potential victims in his quiet, sleepy little county. And that’s just the number Ford has so far.

He’s kept stuff from Daryl already, stuff like Ford having to literally scrub blood off his testicles, stuff like the fact that they both saw the marks on his back. He knows he needs to ask about those as part of the investigation, just in case this is somehow related, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it today. Some part of him doesn’t want the confirmation of what he already knows.

He wonders if he should keep this from him too. If Rick had shown up covered covered in what might very well be the remains of half a dozen people, he’s not sure he’d want to know. He’s never had to walk this line before, the line between protecting someone from the truth and finding the answers within it.

He’s not sure if he would do it for someone else.

He’s not sure why he’s doing it for Daryl if he wouldn’t.

Staring at the photos, he tries to find alternative explanations. Each one seems less likely than the last. Some kind of cult where Daryl was forced to take part in some weird bloodletting ritual. Maybe they’re all samples from a blood bank even, someone going out of their way to torture the Dixon kid because he’s the Dixon kid. Maybe it’s a weird vampire fetish thing gone wrong.

Rick hates that the least outlandish of all possible explanations is that six people are dead and Daryl somehow fell into the middle of it or maybe even escaped being number seven or whatever number he would have been.  

Frustrated, he clears photos off the island, stacking them up and turning them over so nothing is visible except “Kodak Kodak Kodak.” He makes himself a sandwich and goes to bed.

It takes a shot of ZzzQuil and a melatonin for him to finally fall asleep, and even then it’s fitful and restless and so very red.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of you have wondered about the Sharick tag, so there's a little more info about the nature of what they were and what they are and about Shane's character in general in this AU. (Also apparently no one has ever told Rick about Grindr.)
> 
> Anyway, I'm loving all your questions and theories so far. And just your general reactions of "whaaaaat?" Keep them coming even though I won't tell any of you if you're right or wrong. 
> 
> We'll see Daryl again soon.


	5. 166

It’s a little after 4 p.m. when Daryl calls him for the first time. By then, the potential body count is at nine.

“Ri-Sheriff.”

“Daryl, did you remember something?”

“No, well maybe, but that ain't why I called.” There’s an edge to his voice that tells Rick whatever this is, it has the potential to make everything worse. He waits, white knuckling the edge of his desk. Part of him wants to solve this thing before the feds get involved, because he knows what it’s gonna look like when they start sniffing around town and around Daryl. Another part of him thinks it would be a relief to have it all off his hands.

“Daryl?” he asks, even though he knows he’s there. He can hear him breathing.

“I think my brother might be missing.”

“I’ll be right there.”

The sound of his siren is jarring as he speeds out toward Daryl’s place. The world blurs red, blue, red blue.

When he gets there, he finds Daryl sitting on the front steps in jeans so worn Rick can empathize. His plaid shirt has been relieved of its sleeves much like the one Rick pulled off him in the Greene barn. Daryl picks at the strings of his fraying denim, doesn’t say anything while Rick gets out of the car and approaches.

Eyes forward and almost vacant, Rick can see the man on the log all over again. Daryl’s jeans go from blue to wine to blue again. Red, blue, red, blue.

“Daryl,” Rick says, a small part of him afraid he’s lost him again. But Daryl slowly turns and blinks up at him.

“Figured he was just on a bender or somethin when you brought me back,” Daryl says.

“What makes you think he’s not?”

Daryl doesn’t answer, standing up and taking a turn toward the side of the trailer. He jerks his head and Rick follows him around to the back.

The backyard's in a lot better shape than Rick might have expected, and it’s clear someone living there cares at least a little bit about their home. There’s a stack of hubcaps and car parts under an old two-car carport, but there’s some kind of system of organization. A box of rusty tools overflows on a rickety wooden table. Still, they’re all relatively where they should be.

Organized chaos, from the gas cans to the motorcycle standing on a patch of worn dirt.

“His bike’s here,” Daryl says, his voice cracking like it means they can assume the worst. Rick assumes the worst, but he still doesn’t want Daryl’s voice to sound like that ever again.

Screams of “you have to stop it” play over and over in his head. He reaches up and rests his hand on Daryl’s shoulder in an attempt to be comforting.

“Maybe someone picked him up.”

“I’m the only one dumb enough to drive him anywhere anymore,” he says. “Asshole’ll take your keys right out of your pocket and try to convince you it was your idea.”

“Chance he walked?”

“My truck’s gone,” Daryl says, staring at the empty side of the carport. “I think...”

Two tiny pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Rick squeezes Daryl’s shoulder.

“Think I took him wherever it happened. Or he was with me. Or...”

The next breath Rick takes is all lead and no oxygen, settling heavy into his stomach, because he knows what he’s going to have to ask and, Jesus, he doesn’t want to. He delays it, asks the easier question first.

“Can you write down the make and model of your truck for me? And the license plate if you know it?”

“Okay.”

Another breath that makes Rick feel like gravity is pushing him down, down, down, his feet sinking into the grass below.

“Hell.” He pulls his hand off Daryl’s shoulder and drags it through his hair slowly, resting it on the nape of his neck and massaging at the knots he’s not sure will ever untie themselves.

“Whatever you gotta say, say it.”

“Is there somethin in the house with Merle’s DNA on it? Toothbrush? A comb?”

Daryl doesn’t answer, staring at the black motorcycle. He laughs once, the sound more nerves than amusement.

“Fucker was bald. And if he’s ever brushed his teeth once in his entire life, I’ll eat my own ass.”

Through all the animosity, Rick can hear how much Daryl loves him, how much he’s hurting just having to wonder about him. Asshole or not, Merle is his brother.

“It doesn’t matter what it is, just something.”

“Something...”

Inside the house, Rick fixes them both glasses of water. It seems like the thing to do while Daryl rifles through his brother's things, searching for something that can confirm whether or not his brother is one of their victims. Potential victims, Rick corrects, though he knows that “potential” is and has always been a house built on quicksand.

“If he’s alive and alright, you can’t hold this against him,” Daryl says, fisting what looks to be a hand towel turned oil rag. “You can’t.”

The look in his blue eyes is enough to remind Rick of all those times as a child that he longed and pined for a brother. Someone to love him and keep him safe no matter how much they fought. He once thought Shane would be that for him, but they’d been something else entirely. And now they’re nothing.

“Okay,” Rick says, hoping he even has a chance to have the moral dilemma Daryl’s setting him up for.

Daryl carefully peels back the layers of the towel like he’s performing heart surgery. Inside is a single hypodermic needle with a hint of yellowy residue.

“It’ll work, right?”

“You’re sure it’s his?” Rick asks.

“Pretty sure I’m supposed to say no. Deniability and all that.”

“All I care about is making sure it’s his.” He imagines telling Daryl his brother is as good as dead and then finding out later the needle belonged to a woman or one of his brother's junkie friends. He doesn’t want to put Daryl through that. He doesn’t want to put anyone through that.

“It’s his.”

Rick nods and finds something to put the thing in other than a hand towel, settling on wrapping it in clingfilm and then putting it into an empty Pop Tarts box. It’s not the prettiest setup, but it’ll keep anyone from hours at the clinic and weeks of anxiety until he can get it into something else.

“Daryl, were you, do you remember if you and Merle were high when you left that day?”

The look Daryl gives him is all pain, ice clinging to bare limbs on a gray January day. It spears Rick through the chest, the chill of it spreading and spreading. Slowly, it melts into anger, the quiet kind that simmers and bubbles below the surface, bitter as coffee grounds.

“I’m not my brother,” he says.  

“Okay,” Rick says, putting up a hand. He hates himself for asking more than he hates his most recent trip to Shane’s. “I’m sorry.”

“I don’t do that shit.”

“Okay.”

“I’m not him.”

“ _Okay._ ”

Daryl exhales and slides into one of the metal folding chairs at the kitchen table. His shoulders deflate slowly and then he reaches for the nearest glass of water and pulls it to him, running his thumb through the condensation without taking a drink.

“I had to ask,” Rick says, trying to make him understand the he wasn’t assuming anything, just asking the questions he’s supposed to. Daryl sighs. 

“I know.” 

Silence settles around them, and Rick takes a sip of his own water.

“I know you’re not alright, but how are you doin?”

Daryl shakes his head without looking up from the peeling kitchen tile.

“Don’t know if I slept any last night.”

“Have you eaten?” Rick asks.

“Not really.”

Quietly, Rick gets up and starts searching through the kitchen. There’s not much. Lots of frozen meats that he doesn’t have time to thaw and cook, but not much else. He settles on a box of Kraft mac-n-cheese and a can of chili.

If Daryl has a problem with Rick rifling through his pantry and cooking for him, he doesn’t say. He doesn’t say much of anything, back to his habit of picking at the holes in his jeans while Rick boils water and then adds cheese and margarine.

“Here,” Rick says, setting a bowl of chili mac down in front of him. “I can’t cook for shit, but it’s hard to screw this one up.”

“Thanks,” Daryl says without picking up the fork.

“I’m not hungry either,” Rick says, blowing on a bite. “But we have to eat.”

Sighing, Daryl picks up the fork and stirs the contents with it.

“Five bites and I promise I’ll stop bugging you about it.”

“You gonna count ‘em off like I’m in preschool?” Daryl asks, but he takes a bite. And another. And then three more before dropping the fork, the metal handle clicking against the plastic bowl.

“Water now,” Rick insists, taking a drink of his own. He makes a mental note to check on Daryl daily, to make sure he’s eaten and had a drink of something, to make sure he’s taking care of himself through all this shit. It’ll be a good way for Rick to make sure he’s doing the same, at any rate, since he knows he’s forgotten to eat at least once already.

“Fine.” Daryl drinks half the glass.

“I need to ask you some more things,” Rick says, forcing the last bite of food down his throat and pushing it away.

“About Merle?” It’s very clear Daryl doesn’t want to talk about his brother anymore.

“About you. About all this.”

“Mhm.”

“What’s the last thing you remember, from before?”

Daryl looks down at the table and scratches at a knot in the wood, his brow knitting closer and closer together.

“We were on our way back from Carol’s.”

“The diner?”

“Mhm. Merle likes the cookies. And the pie.”

“Anything stand out about it? Did you go a different way than you usually would? Anything out of the ordinary at all even if it doesn’t seem weird?”

More thinking, Daryl presses a palm to his forehead, pushes the heel of it into his eye.

“He was bitchin about the waitress cause she called him a pig.”

“Who was your waitress?” Rick asks, pulling the notebook out of his uniform pocket.

“Shit, Rick, I don’t know. Sheriff, sorry.”

“You can call me Rick. I don’t mind.”

“Somethin with an M. Mary, maybe, but I don’t think that’s right.”

“Maggie?”

“I don’t know, maybe.”

“Hold on.” Rick takes out his cell phone and navigates to the King County Sheriff’s Department’s Facebook. A flip back and back and back, to last year’s Christmas party and the smiling farm girl the dispatcher brought with him. “This her?”

“Yeah, that’s her. Merle told her she had a sweet pair of legs and an even sweeter pair of tits. She shoulda done a lot more than call him a pig.”

But Rick’s head is tilted to the side, the information trickling through his brain. There’s a connection there, a small one that barely makes sense and is probably nothing, but it’s too close to a lead not to follow up on it. More questions he’ll probably hate himself for asking.

“What?” Daryl asks.

“Do you know what day the diner was?” Rick doesn’t know exactly how far back Daryl’s memory lapse goes.

“Monday. Always go on Mondays because that’s when they have the special. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes for $4.99.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” Daryl asks again.

“It’s probably just small town coincidence.”

“Rick.”

“Just strange that you showed up where you showed up two days after your brother hit on Maggie Greene.”

Daryl processes that information same as Rick and frowns.

“You think she had somethin to do with it?” Daryl asks. It's clear he doesn't. 

“Honestly, no. She’s a firecracker but she’s not a murderer. But it’s my job to ask the questions, and someone else who didn’t know everybody would certainly be askin.”

“Mm.”

“I’d rather turn over every damn stone in the county than miss the one I need.”

Daryl nods and miraculously takes another bite of chili mac, another drink of water. Rick resists the urge to praise him like he’s a toddler eating all his vegetables.

“Rick.”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

“Just doin my job,” Rick says, picking up the box and his keys.

“Mhm.”

“Before I go, you said you might have remembered somethin else? On the phone earlier.”

“Just drivin. Not much help."

“Can you remember if you were alone or not?”

Daryl concentrates and shakes his head. He looks so defeated, and Rick wants to hug him even though he’s sure that’s the last thing Daryl would like him to do.  

“All I can see is my hands on the wheel and the old highway.”

“Which old highway?”

“One sixty-six,” Daryl says without hesitation.

“How do you know?”

“Just know. Been down it enough to know what it looks like, all the lines in the asphalt.”

Rick nods and keeps his thoughts to himself.

“Alright. I’ll be stoppin back by tomorrow to check on you, but don’t hesitate to call before then if there’s anything else.”

Daryl nods once and mumbles a good-bye. Rick resists the urge to smile when he pulls the bowl of food to him.

Back at home, Rick rolls a map out across the kitchen island, every color marker and highlighter he could scrounge out of his junk drawer siting on top of it. In red, he marks the location where they found Daryl, trailing the marker through the woods in an approximate match to the one Daryl made in blood.

He stops the marker at Highway 166.

Carol’s diner, he circles in pink. Daryl’s house in hunter green. In black and blue and lime, he traces every possible route between the two locations. Not a single one meets the highway, meaning they either chose to go joy riding or deviated for some other reason. But why? Without Daryl’s memories, there are holes everywhere.

Cocking his head, Rick looks at the map from one angle and then another. He circles around the island, spins it with his fingertips. If only he could be like one of those cops on TV that can solve a whole crime with one little clue. But it seems like every thread he tries to follow unravels in his hands.

He wonders if at any point he’ll ever have an answer that doesn’t spawn even more questions. He wonders if Daryl has finished the rest of that chili mac. If he’s had water. If he’s managed to sleep.

He picks up his phone and debates calling him or even calling Shane, the latter being a terrible idea because Rick changed his number years ago and deliberately withheld the updated digits.

He calls Ford instead.

“That you, Grimes?” he asks, and Rick can hear the lab equipment going in the background. Apparently he’s not the only one putting in late hours, though he’s sure Ford has other work up in Fulton besides bags and bags of blood.

“Yeah, sometimes I feel like an idiot about all this forensics shit.”

“You know what my nephew does, sheriff?”

“Hmm?”

“He’s an electrical engineer. Smart as a whip. But I can guarantee if I threw him in this lab unsupervised tomorrow, he’d be more confused than a blind man at an acne convention. Doesn’t make him stupid.”

“Yeah,” Rick says, blinking at the analogy because he can't quiet decide if it's offensive or not, “yeah, I guess not.”

“What’s your question?”

“If I have a DNA sample that might match one of the ones you found, is that something you can find out pretty quick?”

“Faster than running them all against the databases. They keep saying they’re gonna consolidate all this shit, but we all know what it’s like waiting for the government to get around to something, especially when it means more than one agency working together.”

“Yeah,” Rick says. “Guess I’ll send an officer up your way with this in the morning.”

“And you’ll have your answer before quittin time if it matches one of the samples I’ve already pulled.”

“Thank you.”

“And Rick, I was gonna hold onto this happy piece of information until tomorrow, but since you’re already here.”

Rick presses fingers into his forehead, pushing at the tendrils of pain blooming behind his eyes.

“How many more?”

“Just one. But I’m starting on the shoes in the morning.”

The shoes that were practically buckets of the stuff. There’s no telling how many more he’ll find.

“How much do you have left after that?”

“That’ll be it, but I figure they’ll take a while. There’s so much shit here, I’m just trying to be as thorough as I can.”

“Wouldn’t expect anything less. Guess we’ll talk tomorrow.”

The line goes dead and Rick pulls his notebook out of the pocket of his unbuttoned uniform shirt. He uses the red marker to cross out the number nine, scrawling a ten in its place.

He hears Williams back at the Greene farm, asking him so simply, “What else?”

And he knows what he’ll have to start doing if Ford doesn’t have matches for all that DNA. And the hates the thought of that, of having to ask families with missing loved ones to kick up all that pain and suffering all over again as he envisions a steady stream of hairbrushes and baby teeth trailing into the station.

He looks at the map again, tracing Daryl’s trail with his finger.

“What happened to you?” he asks, before rolling up the map and calling it a night.

Even with the ZzzQuil and melatonin, Rick barely sleeps.  


	6. Coffee and Pie

Daryl doesn’t sleep. He eats the rest of Rick’s food out of some sense of obligation. He drinks more water because the pads of his fingers are wrinkled. But he doesn’t sleep.

Every time he closes his eyes, his mind goes too fast, dwelling on the parts he remembers and that photo of him sitting there at the Greene farm. His brother’s bike and what it probably means.

He stares up at the ceiling, the radio on but down low, just enough to create noise without him having to focus on what’s being said or sung. In the dark, his eyes play tricks on him and the gouges and water damage on the ceiling morph and change. Brown stains darken and slowly turn red, flowing across the drywall until he swears he can smell the sharp twang of metal.

Specks of red on gray. A crimson river meets a silver sea.

Daryl gasps and sits up, groping for the light switch and then Rick’s notebook. He scrawls the memory under the description of the highway in black ink, pressing the pen in so hard it leaves cuts in the paper. And the words are barely legible when he’s done, but he can read them even if no one else can. And maybe he prefers it that way.

Checking the time, he decides he doesn’t care if it’s nearly 4 a.m. He calls Rick anyway. And he answers way too fast to have been asleep.

“Daryl.”

“I remembered somethin.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Not here. I’ll…” Daryl remembers he doesn’t have the truck, just Merle’s motorcycle and there’s no way he can bring himself to drive it. “Never mind.”

It feels like eons and no time at all when he hears the siren blaring in the distance. He waits on the front steps until he sees red and blue.

When he hops into the passenger seat of the cruiser, Rick doesn’t protest or ask questions. He just backs up and turns around, pulling out onto the blacktop and killing the flashers and siren.

They pull up in front of Carol’s a few minutes later, the only vehicle in the parking lot save a big rig. Together, they walk inside and slide into the booth that’s physically farthest from the trucker working on his breakfast.

“Coffee?”

The woman’s name tag says Jessie, and she makes eyes at Rick that make Daryl feel like throwing his mug at the nearest wall. Rick doesn’t even look like a full person, red eyes, salt and pepper stubble, and a wrinkled gray t-shirt thrown over a pair of even more wrinkled dark blue jeans. His waves are a mess, leading into curls that go twenty different directions. No one should be making eyes at him in such a state.

“Whatever,” Daryl says. He just wants her gone. But her leaving will mean that he has to talk about the image playing on repeat in his brain.

“That’s not really an answer, now is it?” She smiles at him like he’s five years old.

“Just pour the damn coffee,” Daryl growls. Across the table Rick throws her an apologetic look, and Daryl knows in his bones that he’ll over tip her when they leave. She pours coffee in both mugs, spilling a lot of Daryl’s all over the saucer underneath.

“I’ll be back in a second for your orders.”

Rick fiddles with his coffee for a moment. Two sugars, no cream. When his eyes look up across the table, Daryl braces himself for the inevitable.

“Did you sleep at all?” Rick asks.

It’s not the question Daryl’s expecting, and it throws him off guard. He huffs, more flustered at the change in the situation than anything because he hates being off-balance. But he’s sure he comes off annoyed, and between that and him barking at the waitress, Rick probably thinks he’s an asshole. He reminds himself that Rick probably thought he was an asshole long before now.

“No.”

“Yeah, me neither.” Rick rubs his eyes and then slides his hand back through his hair. “Have some coffee.”

Daryl has some coffee, ignoring the drips falling from the bottom of the mug into his lap as he drinks it black.

“What’ll it be, boys?” Jessie asks, keeping her eyes on Rick while she leans casually on the table. And just like that, Daryl’s sixteen again, watching Shane eye Rick hungrily. Coveting, God did Daryl covet. Daryl opens his mouth to say “nothing,” but Rick beats him.

“We’ll both have the pie.”

“Good choice,” she says, jotting it down and leaving, seemingly relieved that she doesn’t have to interact with Daryl. Daryl doesn’t blame her in all honesty.

“I really don’t want to ask, but you know I have to.” Rick sips his coffee, purses his lips and blows across the top and sips again.

“I called you,” Daryl reminds him.

“Yeah.”

“I remember smelling it,” Daryl says, grateful when Rick doesn’t ask what.

“At the farm?”

“Before.”

Rick sits up straighter, digs around in his jeans pocket and pulls out a small notepad. The number ten in bold red ink is the only thing Daryl can make out.

“That all?”

“Somethin metal. White metal. And then silver. And just…it, everywhere.”

Rick nods, scribbling away.

“That’s good, Daryl,” he says. “That’s real good.”

“I...”

Jessie sets two pieces of blackberry pie down in front of them along with napkins and forks. Daryl resists the urge to bark at her again and waits for her to walk away after Rick thanks her. He notes that for all her staring and eyelash batting, Rick barely notices or cares.

_The Wrong Tree and You: Where Not to Bark._

“What were you gonna say? Do you remember somethin else?”

Daryl closes his eyes, tempted to eat the entire piece of pie just to avoid saying it. He looks at Rick across the booth, at bloodshot blue eyes and messy brown hair and stubble. He squirms.

“Daryl.”

Warmth comes in the form of Rick reaching across and resting his fingers over the back of his hand. He squeezes reassuringly.

“Take your time.”

“Just the feelin,” Daryl says. “That’s the other thing I remember.”

He feels a pang of something like regret when Rick’s fingers slide away.

“What feeling?”

“Fear.” He looks up and meets Rick’s eyes, wonders if he’s seen enough to understand the gravity of what he’s about to say. Daryl sees blue fingers unbuttoning his shirt right before he speaks. “I’ve been scared shitless before, but never like this.”

Rick’s fingers come back, squeezing his wrist this time, like Daryl is more important than the need to write this down right away. Like Daryl is important at all.

“I’m sorry,” Rick says.

“Why? Not like you did it.”

“No, but when I find who did...”

He doesn’t say anything after that, not for a while anyway. Neither does Daryl. The two of them sip coffee, get refills, and sip more. Outside, the sky lightens.

“Guess we shouldn’t waste this pie,” Rick finally says, when the morning crowd starts to trickle in. He picks up both forks and hands one over to him. It’s a quiet way of insisting, Daryl knows it.

He eats the pie.

When they leave, Rick insists on paying the whole ticket, which is good because Daryl doesn’t even have his wallet. He’s not sure he has it at all, but he’s refused to focus on that, the stress of knowing he’ll have to replace everything in it too much to deal with on top of everything else

Rick leaves an extra twenty dollars on the table.

At the edge of the parking lot, Rick hits the brakes before pulling out into what little traffic there is. He looks over at Daryl.

“I think seeing that therapist today might be a good idea.”

Daryl nods even though it’s the last thing he wants to do in the entire world. He doesn’t want to know. With everything he remembers, he’s more and more sure his brain made the right decision in forgetting it all to begin with.

“Are you okay going home?”

Daryl feels like he should say yes. The sun’s up so at least the ceiling won’t ebb and flow above him. But his brother is everywhere to be nowhere. And it’s so quiet, quiet enough for him to think too much. So he gives Rick the truth instead of the lie.

“No.”

“Alright.”

Back at the station, Rick offers Daryl just about every room there other than the bullpen. And then he offers him that too.

“You can sit at my desk too if you want, but I figured you wouldn’t want to with me working on the case.”

“No,” Daryl says. As much as spending the day near Rick sounds comforting, he doesn’t want to be around all the morbid details of what happened to him and probably Merle.

“Well?”

“Which room would you pick? If you were just here.”

“The visitation room,” Rick says. “No visitors on Fridays and no one’s gonna bother you.”

Daryl picks the visitation room, indulging Rick when he brings him a pillow and blanket in case he wants to curl himself over one of the tables and try to rest.

“Denise, the therapist, she’s gonna be in this afternoon.” Rick pushes a mug of water toward him and Daryl takes a drink. “If you need me or remember anything else, you’re welcome to come out and find me. Or you can pick up the phone in the corner there and dial my extension. Triple four.”

Daryl nods and pushes the mug of water away so he can lay the pillow on the metal in front of him. He puts his head down, turning to look at Rick.

“Wish I could join you,” Rick says, yawning and laying a hand on his shoulder and squeezing. “Anyway, I’ll check on you in a few hours.”

Daryl nods again. Somewhere seemingly safe, away from things that remind him of Merle, his eyes get a little heavier.

“See ya, Rick.”

“Yeah.”

Rick leaves the room, shutting the door with a soft click. Somehow, Daryl falls asleep and stays that way for a while. Mercifully, he doesn’t dream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway, let's all have fun counting how many times Rick touches Daryl. 
> 
> And many more thanks for all the comments and theories and subscriptions and general intrigue.


	7. Lucky Number Thirteen

Chambler’s barely back from Atlanta when Rick gets the call from Ford.

His gut twists the second he sees the caller ID on his cell. Elsewhere in the station, Daryl sits with the therapist. Rick might be receiving the worst news Daryl will ever get while the other man suffers through Dr. Cloyd gently poking and prodding at the walls in his torn mind.

“I ran the sample.”

Rick says a silent prayer, sending it out into the universe and willing it to be answered. Please not this.

“Yeah?” he asks, his voice betraying every single shard of his already broken hope.   
  
Please no. Don’t do this to him.

“It matched.”

Fuck.

Rick leans his forehead into his hand. Pain blooms inside his skull and he sighs wearily. The logical side of his brain wars with itself. A shred of DNA doesn’t mean Merle’s actually dead. Sure there was a ton of blood, but there are also a ton of victims. Maybe they didn’t all bleed out. Maybe it’s something else. Maybe. But probably not, the same logic follows. Why make that many people bleed to begin with if you weren’t gonna kill them?   
  
While the logical side of his brain fights out the possibilities, the emotional side of his brain plummets deeper into stress and anxiety, into self-blame and ever-increasing empathy for Daryl. Something in his chest throbs erratically.  
  
“Do you want the other good news?” Ford asks. And oh God, there’s more.

“Not really,” Rick mumbles. He’s already imagining what’s going to happen in the next few minutes. He’s going to have to tell Daryl that his brother’s probably dead. And he'd rather saw off his own arm with a steak knife. He'd rather a lot of fucking things. 

Daryl will only be the first of many he has to have this kind of conversation with. It's not a pleasant thought. 

“I’m done with the shoes,” Ford says, even as Rick tries to think of how he could ever soften this hard of a blow.

One more piece of bad news, he tells himself. One more piece of shitty, shitty information, and then he’ll be done with bad news for the day. Probably.

“Yeah?”

“Lucky number thirteen, sheriff.”

 _Thirteen._ The room spins and the fluorescent lights above shift from white to red and back to white again.

Thirteen fucking people are probably dead and Daryl was fucking covered in them. And one of them was his fucking brother.

“Jesus," Rick breathes. 

“I don’t think He was there that day, sheriff,” Ford says, serious for once.

Rick hasn't believed in any kind of concrete God in a long time, but if there is one, then he's inclined to agree. Whatever happened to Daryl was sinister and dark. 

“Anything else?” Rick asks, regretting the question immediately because Christ, what if the answer isn't "no"?

“One ID came back.”

So much for no more bad news.

“Who?”

“Sophia Peelyteer? Paylaytire? I’m not sure I’m saying that right. I can spell it if you-.” 

"I don't." 

Rick slams his head on the desk and swears quietly. Carol’s daughter. Weeks they had looked for her in the woods. The woods directly across from the Greene property. The woods right off Highway 166.

The knots in his neck and shoulder pull a little tighter.

More connections that are tenuous at best. The Greene farm. The marks on Daryl’s back. The bruises on Carol’s wrists before Ed Peletier finally turned his sights on their daughter and knocked something loose in his wife. Rick had still been a deputy back then when Carol walked into the station with the little girl tucked under her arm and asked to file charges. He remembers the way she radiated pure strength even while she shook from head to toe, how he thought she’d be okay somehow. Then she’d opened the diner within a year, and he’d been sure he was right.   
  
It wasn't too long after the diner had 99 cent pie for their one year anniversary that Sophia went missing. When they finally called off the search, Carol had told him that not knowing what happened to her daughter was the hardest part of all of it. He’s not so sure she’ll say that when she’s faced with the truth. He’s not even sure what the truth is or if he should tell her what he knows so far. There's probably some kind of protocol for this in places where it happens, but he doesn't know it, only that with Daryl, he doesn't really see a choice. 

“Ford,” Rick finally mumbles, sitting up because he has to. Because if he’s going to fall apart, it’ll have to wait until he figures all this out. The county needs him; _Daryl needs him_.

“Sheriff?”

“Have you ever dealt with anything like this before? I know it wasn’t like this, but have you ever…?”

“Had a serial killer in the city here a few years back. Killed eight women and mutilated the bodies. Strung the skins up on flagpoles all over Atlanta and the suburbs. Even an elementary school. Sick son of a bitch actually smiled when we finally arrested him.”

“Does it get any easier? All this shit?” Rick asks.

“Do you want the truth or the feel better, sheriff?”

“The truth, though I’m thinking I might regret that.” Rick pulls his notebook out and draws a black line through the number ten. He scrawls thirteen and knows that number will haunt him long after he’s old and gray, his badge retired to some glass display case in his living room. Finding a blank page, he writes Sophia Peletier and Merle Dixon. Below that, he numbers the lines all the way down to thirteen. The blank spaces fucking taunt him. 

“No, it doesn’t," Ford answers. 

“Thanks,” Rick says weakly.

“The good news is that in a place like yours, you’ll probably only have to do this once.”

He has a point, one that should be some kind of a relief, but it doesn’t feel like one. Because no amount of relief can take away the fact that thirteen people have probably died on Rick’s watch and he didn’t even know it. Might have never known it if Daryl hadn't shown up. 

 _Escaped_ , Rick's brain supplies. He jots the word on another page with a question mark at the end. 

“Thanks again,” Rick says, already digging through his desk for ibuprofen. He momentarily wishes he was some haggard PI with a bottle of hard whiskey stashed away in a drawer. “Call me if you get any more IDs. Or if you don’t.”

“Will do, sheriff.” 

The line goes dead and Rick turns his head toward the visitation room. He’s never wanted to do something less in his life, including every post-breakup visit to Shane’s that he's ever embarked on. Reluctantly, his feet carry him out of the bullpen and down the hall.

Daryl’s holding the pillow like a security blanket when he walks in, and everything in Rick’s soul screams at him not to hurt him any more. And he wishes he could just ball this secret up and swallow it whole and take it to his grave.

But wishes and reality are often brutal enemies. He'd more than know that now if he hadn't already discovered it years ago. 

“Any progress?” Rick stalls. He swears there are actual knives in his gut, sharp stabbing pains worming their way through his stomach.

“A little,” Dr. Cloyd says, at the same time that Daryl says “no.”

“Remembered some more of the highway, some construction and shit, but nothin that would tell you nothin.”

“That’s still good,” Rick says. “Maybe it’ll lead to somethin that will.”

His feet like stones, he takes another step toward the table where Daryl sits with the therapist.

“I need to speak to Daryl alone for a moment, if you don’t mind,” he says to to the doctor. Silently, he begs her to disobey him and stay, pleading with his eyes and his soul.

“Oh. Should I head back to the office?” she asks. 

“No,” Rick says. He doesn’t know if she can help Daryl process what he’s about to tell him, but he figures he should keep her around long enough for Daryl to make that decision himself. “Not yet. Just step outside for a minute.”

Watching her leave the room feels like watching his own execution. He sinks down into her vacant seat. It’s still warm, but Rick feels so cold.

“Daryl, there’s no easy way to say this,” Rick says, his tongue sticking to the roof of his mouth again and again while he forms the words. And damn has he tried to come up with an easy way, but there’s a reason the cliched phrase exists. Because there are no easy ways to give bad news.

Tortured blue eyes meet his, already swimming with grief and fear, and he knows Daryl knows what’s coming, that across the table he’s sinking a little more with every word even as he waits and hopes that Rick isn’t about to say exactly what Rick is about to say.

“The DNA we took from Merle’s needle matches one of the samples we found on you.” Rick's hands tremble on the table top. 

There’s a moment where Daryl doesn’t react, his face icing over, his expression empty. He blinks in rapid succession, like if he can close and open his eyes enough he’ll wake up and find out it was all some fucked up dream. Then slowly the ice melts and the corners of his lips migrate downward. His brows move closer together. He transforms from a blank canvas to a portrait of abject sorrow before Rick’s eyes.

Distraught. That’s the only way to describe him, his face screwed up in tears, the pillow pressed tightly against his chest.

“No,” Daryl says, rocking softly in his chair, fingers digging into the cotton pillowcase. “No, no, no.”

Without hesitation, Rick gets up and circles around the table. Daryl practically falls into his arms, big fat tears bleeding through his shirt. Rick holds him, petting his hair and saying nothing. There’s nothing that can be said. Daryl just needs to feel this.

 _Dolor hic tibi proderit olim_. Those were the departing words of wisdom Deanna had left him when she retired. _Someday this pain will be useful to you._

Rick wonders what in the living hell could be useful about about any of this.

He holds Daryl until he’s done crying, until he pulls back, his face yet again a mask. There’s no sign of how he feels other than the dampness on his cheeks.

“Do you want to talk to Denise about this?” Rick asks, and Daryl shakes his head. Out of options, Rick says the only other helpful thing he can think to say.

“Then what do you need?”

“To be anywhere but here.”

“That I can do." 

Rick drives Daryl away from the station and then out of town. At the very edge of the county line, he takes a small gravel road, stopping the car when it dead ends.

“C’mon,” he says, getting out. “It’s about a tenth of a mile through the trees here.”

Daryl doesn’t ask what Rick’s talking about or question him about why they’re walking. He just follows him along a slightly overgrown trail through the trees. On the other side is an outcropping that overlooks the old quarry. Rain water and runoff have filled it over the years since it went out of business, forming an abnormally blue pond. Glancing back at Daryl, Rick sits down on a large stone and pats the rock beside him. 

Daryl sits, drawing his knees up and wrapping his arms around them.

“I’m sorry,” Rick says, because he is. He’s never gone a day in his job without feeling some kind of personal responsibility for everything that goes wrong in the county. And this is a very big wrong.

“Ain’t this private property?” Daryl asks, but the words are flat and lifeless. Rick reaches over and rests his hand on one of Daryl’s forearms.

“Company asked us to keep an eye on it since kids like to sneak out here and drink and swim,” Rick says. “We’ll consider this me checking on it.”

“You used to sneak out here,” Daryl says. “You and...”

“Yeah.” He means Shane. He and Shane used to swim in the quarry, among other things. Then again, so did all their other friends and half the kids in town.

“Asshole,” Daryl mutters, and Rick huffs softly.

“Yeah, he is.” Rick squeezes Daryl’s forearm and draws his hand away. “That why you punched him in high school? Because you knew he was an asshole before the rest of us did?”

Daryl turns and looks at him and then looks back out over the pond, chewing on his bottom lip. He shrugs.

Suddenly more than curious, Rick starts to ask for the full story, but when he turns to Daryl, there are fresh tears streaming quietly down his face. They drip from his chin into his lap. Another time maybe, but not today.

“Merle and I fished here once,” Daryl says, wiping at his nose with his sleeve.

“Shit, I didn’t know.” Rick wouldn't have brought him here if he had. He'd never seen either of the Dixon boys out at the quarry when they were younger, and he’d been sure that out of everywhere in the county, this was the least likely to be full of ghosts. Maybe he should have taken him somewhere else. Maybe they should’ve driven and driven until the cruiser ran out of gas and whatever happened to Daryl Dixon was miles behind them. 

Wishes and fucking reality fighting again. 

Daryl sniffs and speaks. 

“Yeah, he won some piece of shit metal fishing boat playin poker with his buddies. No motor and it took us half the morning to plug all the holes. Even after that, we bailed water all damn day.”

Rick reaches for Daryl again, this time placing a hand in between his shoulder blades. He rubs soft circles through the plaid and listens without interrupting. He may not be a therapist, but he knows it’s good that Daryl’s talking about Merle, that he’s letting things out instead of holding them in.

“Asshole was determined that we were gonna have fresh catfish for dinner. It was so late by the time we got on the water, we didn’t catch shit but a couple of sunburns.”

Rick listens, trying to be as comforting as possible. He remembers when his dad died, the way it felt like the entire Earth had fallen away and left Rick with nowhere to plant his feet. And Daryl’s feet have already been struggling for purchase lately. He deserves to have someone at least _try_ to keep him from falling completely into the abyss. 

“He’s dead,” Daryl says simply. He turns and looks at Rick, the tracks of moisture on his face catching the light in a series of cruel, glistening lines. Daryl points to his temple. “I don’t know if somewhere in here I remember or if I just feel it, but I know. I think I already knew before you even...”

His bottom lip quivers, making Rick’s throat tighten painfully. Gracelessly, Daryl lets his legs fall off the rock and then he pitches forward into him. Rick’s barely fast enough to keep them from both tumbling off onto the gravel. For the second time that day, Daryl weeps in his arms, his whole body shaking.

Softly, Rick rubs his back. And it doesn’t matter if it takes all afternoon or well into the next morning, if this is what Daryl needs, then he’ll have it. He remembers crying alone in his room after his dad passed, how he'd wished someone else was there, how Shane had refused to come over with a series of vague excuses that should have been glaring red flags.

And while he holds Daryl and comforts him, he thinks of what he said to Daryl before, of an unfinished threat.

_“But when I find who did...”_

Rick finishes the words now in his head, reaching up to smooth Daryl’s hair.

But when I find out who did, I’m going to make them wish they had never so much as _looked_ at you.

He and Daryl don’t leave the quarry until well after dark.


	8. It Feels Like Shit, Kid

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, y'all want a new chapter?

Daryl doesn’t want to go home. He sits in the passenger seat of Rick’s cruiser while he drives away from the quarry, voices on the radio spouting out license plate numbers and reports of wayward cows.

He can’t go home.

“Are you hungry?” Rick asks, turning the car back toward town.

“No,” Daryl says, though he knows he barely ate lunch. Another peanut butter and jelly. He couldn’t find the will to tell the cop who delivered it that he didn’t want it.

“Well, I am,” Rick says. And it feels like a lie. Daryl’s not stupid despite what a lot of people in their town think. And Rick’s not slick enough to hide the fact that he’s trying to take care of him.

It might be the first time in his life that Daryl’s had someone lie to him because they care.

“I don’t have any money,” Daryl says, cheeks warming when the words come out. “Or I do, but my wallet is with my truck or maybe with...”

He leans his head against the window, his throat already trying to tighten again. He wants to be through crying. Merle would want him to be through crying.

“ _Only way out is through, baby brother,”_  he hears somewhere in his head.

It was almost Merle’s catch phrase. Daryl remembers the hunting trip that spawned it. A teenage Merle traipsing through the woods with a flask of pilfered alcohol while an eight-year-old Daryl complained that he was scaring all the deer. A trip, a fall, an arrow embedded in Merle’s side. Daryl on the verge of panic, his young brain sure that his brother was going to die and he’d be left all alone with their dad. He’d be all alone in general.

_He’s all alone._

Rick stops the cruiser in front of Big Daddy’s Burgers. Daryl follows him inside and takes the booth in the far back, the one that usually doesn’t get used other than on Sundays at lunch time when the place is overflowing with church folks meeting up after service.

Rick finds him after ordering at the front counter. He’s holding two glasses of sweet tea and a placard hand-painted with the number four.

“You do like sweet tea, right?” Rick asks, setting the glass down in front of him. “I can get you water or Coke or something else?”

“It’s fine,” Daryl mumbles, taking a sip because he feels like he should. Rick slides in across from him, their calves brushing briefly under the table.

Rick takes a big gulp of tea and sits up straighter, sighing and rubbing at his eyes. He looks exhausted, his face and shoulders slumped slightly like the weight of everything is pushing down on him. And it probably is.

Daryl wishes he was in a state to comfort him, but he’s not. He feels just as heavy.

Two matching sets of burgers and fries appear, Daryl’s with all the condiments and vegetables on the side.

“You don’t have to finish it,” Rick says, “but please eat something.”

Daryl eats something, managing half the burger and a handful of fries. He barely tastes it.

“Rick,” he says quietly, pushing the rest of the food away because if he has one more bite, he very well might vomit. Rick looks up, swallowing his food.

“Yeah?”

“Is there somewhere I can go tonight?” he asks, and when he hears the way the words come out, he feels so small.

“I can put you back in a holding cell, unlocked of course, or...” Rick turns away, looking out the window at the parking lot. It’s empty on that side of the restaurant. The security light flickers between bright and dim, bright and dim.

“Or?”

“My couch isn’t much, but it’s not bad.”

Daryl laughs, not meaning to, not expecting to. It’s strangled and desperate and he chokes on the sound, but he laughs. All those times he dreamed of sleeping over at Rick Grimes’ house and all it took was his brother dying and the world falling apart. The universe is fucking cruel.

“I’m sorry,” he says, when he finally stops. “It’s not…your couch sounds fine.”

“Okay,” Rick says, reaching across the table to squeeze his wrist, the touch fleeting. “Do we need to get you some clothes first?”

Daryl looks down at the tabletop.

“I won’t make you go in. You can just tell me where and I’ll throw some shit in a bag.”

Daryl knows he should agree, knows he should have things like pajamas and underwear and his toothbrush, but when he opens his mouth, all that comes out is a strangled, “please.”

“Okay,” Rick says softly, understanding and acquiescing. “Okay.”

He drives Daryl back to his place and makes him wait on the porch. He doesn’t say why, but Daryl can guess at the photos being tucked away in drawers, the notes and evidence being quietly put somewhere out of sight so Daryl doesn’t have to think about it.

Rick gets him extra pillows and a soft heavy quilt. He sets a glass of water down on the coffee table and tells him he has full reign of the remote, that the sound won’t bother him. He offers him sleeping pills and ibuprofen. Daryl takes both and curls up on the couch with the TV on some history documentary just for noise. The unfamiliarity of Rick’s place is somehow vastly comforting.

Before he falls asleep, he swears he hears Merle again.

_“The only way out is through.”_

* * *

Rick finds Daryl in his living room on Saturday morning, fast asleep and drooling on the pillow. It’s the most peaceful he’s seen him since that day at the farm, and he tiptoes out to get the morning paper, cringing every time he makes a noise. They both need sleep so desperately that it feels too sacred to disturb it.

Moving quietly into the kitchen, he brews coffee and unfurls the newspaper on the island, swearing softly when he sees the front page. He knew it would get out eventually. But he’s still not prepared for the old mugshot of a barely-adult Daryl and the giant black headline above it.

**_Wednesday, Bloody Wednesday_ **  
**_Dixon Boy Found Covered in Blood_ **

Rick skims the article. It’s sparse and it’s clear that none of his officers betrayed him or there’d be more to it. Someone took the time to comment that they wouldn’t discuss an active investigation, which is exactly what Rick would have said. Still, even though it’s only the barest bones of a story, Rick wishes it didn’t exist. He can see everything playing out, the way people will turn to one another and whisper about Daryl anytime he so much as breathes in their town. The way the families of the victims will look at him when Rick finds out who all those families are and tells them all the things they don’t want to know.

Dixons make easy scapegoats.

He hears Daryl back in the interrogation room telling him he didn’t do this. He remembers how much he believed him, how much he still believes him.

He rolls the newspaper up and throws it in the drawer with the crime scene photos. Daryl doesn’t need to see this. He knows he’ll have to warn him at some point before he leaves his place, but it can wait.

Still making every effort to be as quiet as possible, Rick fixes a cup of coffee and sips it quietly in his kitchen while he watches the sky outside lighten. He thinks about Carol Peletier and when to tell her and what to tell her. And how. 

He wonders if Abe is working on a Saturday or if he’ll have to wait until Monday for more news. He doesn’t know which option he’d choose if he could.

After a while, he finally hears Daryl stir with gentle footsteps across the hardwood. He pours another cup of coffee, black this time. The toilet in the guest bathroom flushes, and he walks out to the living room, placing the steaming mug into Daryl’s hands when he comes back in. They sit on the couch and sip caffeine in silence.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” Daryl says, setting his mug down on the coffee table. Steam dances above the cup.

“Sleep okay?” Rick asks, finding that he genuinely wants to know.

“Better than I would’ve somewhere else.”

“We can probably get you fixed up somewhere else for tonight. A motel room maybe.” He knows there’s room in the emergency budget for it, that he could probably justify it as protective custody or something. Really, isn’t Daryl’s sanity something worth protecting if they need him to help solve this thing?

“I don’t wanna c-”

Rick can guess at what Daryl had intended to say before his cell phone started ringing. He wants to deny the call and tell Daryl that he’s anything but trouble, even if it feels like that’s all that either of their lives have been lately. But the number on the screen is the station. He can’t just ignore it.

“Grimes,” he says, holding the phone up to his ear. His stomach twists and twists in the milliseconds while he waits for someone to speak. It could be anything. Daryl’s truck. An actual body. Both.

“Hey, it’s Espinosa.”

“Yeah?” More twisting, Rick’s shoulders knotting and knotting. He spills a drop of coffee on the carpet before catching the cup and tipping it upright. Daryl glances down but doesn’t say anything.

“There’s a huge wreck at the 4-way. Diesel flipped into a sedan. Another vehicle involved as well. Townies called us in to help and we could really use you.”

“On my way.” And God, Rick hates that he feels almost relieved. It only lasts a moment before he realizes that this could mean multiple injuries or fatalities. More death on his watch, even if it is a traffic accident.

He pours the rest of his now lukewarm coffee down his throat and stands up, glancing back at Daryl. He gives him a look that nearly rips Rick in two. It’s all pain and questions. Daryl thinks it’s something to do with him, something else to tear his world even more asunder.

“Wreck downtown,” Rick says, already pulling off his tee shirt on his way to the bedroom. Behind him Daryl exhales raggedly, and Rick’s sure he’s relieved too. He decides not to tell him how bad it is. Daryl deserves some relief, however fleeting.

Like that morning at the Greene farm, Rick opts for speed over formality, throwing on jeans and a clean tee, clipping his badge to his waist. He picks the Colt up and checks the chamber before walking out into the living room with it held loosely by his side. Looking down at Daryl on the couch, he runs his hand through his hair, massaging the back of his neck. He beyond knows it’s not appropriate to just leave him at his place alone, not with all the photos in the kitchen drawers.

Hell, it’s not really appropriate to have him there to begin with, supervised or not. But what the hell else was he supposed to have done?

He quickly weighs his options. If the wreck’s bad, he doesn’t want him to see it. None of the evidence in the kitchen is of the bagged and tagged variety. No lawyer could argue Daryl tampered. But still, there’s lots of other things they  _could_  argue.

“C’mon,” Rick says, finally settling on a solution. The Dairy Queen about half a mile away from the four way. “I’m gonna drop you off for a bit. If that’s alright.”

Daryl shrugs. Rick figures he’d probably agree to about anything so long as it wasn’t going home. So that’s what he goes with, quickly swinging into the Dairy Queen on his way to the wreck, leaving Daryl with some cash in case he’s still there at lunch time. He promises to come back for him as soon as possible.

And Rick hates this solution the least, but he still hates it. It feels a lot like he’s abandoning him when he peels out of the parking lot.

* * *

Daryl picks the back corner booth after ordering a cup of coffee. He figures it’ll be a boring morning more than anything, him staring out the window and watching what passes for traffic in their little town.

He hears about the wreck pretty early on, people gossiping about it like it’s the latest episode of some soap opera. They follow their excited hisses about how bad it looks with syrupy promises to pray that everyone made it out alive. Typical small town bullshit. The excitement over the prospect of death followed by hollow promises for shit they probably won’t even do.

He sips his coffee and tries not to think about the last time he went to church, how the preacher had ranted and raved about how America was on the path toward damnation. His father had raised his hand to the sky and shouted ‘Amen’ at all the right places. Daryl knew that hand had never been holy and that any God who would let him pretend it was wasn’t worth his damn time.

No one had died in the wreck. Daryl finds that out around the time people start trickling in to order early lunch. The same voices that might have gossiped excitedly that morning are all praises to the Lord that everyone made it out. The prayers they lie about praying were answered, it seems. Daryl’s just glad that it means Rick will probably be there soon. He’s read every poster on the dingy walls a hundred times. Chicken strip baskets are still $4.99 as they were that morning. The Blizzard of the Month is still double chocolate cookie dough. 

His day feels marked by repetition. The same posters, the wreck, another cup of coffee. Posters, wreck, coffee.

He expects Rick to be the eventual break in that monotony. But it’s not Rick at all. It’s the Samuels girl. Daryl vaguely notices her when she walks in behind her dad, trailing another smaller blonde girl behind her. He recognizes Ryan from high school, quietly thinks that he didn’t realize he had kids, and then goes back to sipping his coffee.

But her whispering excitedly to her father and pointing at him makes him uneasy. Her starting in his direction while Ryan calls out “Lizzie, no” makes him doubly so. For a brief second, he hopes she’ll keep walking past him, right into the little hallway that leads to the bathrooms, but she stops directly beside his table. Her eyes hold an almost manic excitement.

“Is it true?”

“Is what true?” Daryl asks, though he has a sinking feeling he knows. If people will gossip about a car accident, they were bound to gossip about him. It was only a matter of time and he should have always known that.

“It was in the papers this morning,” she says, sliding into the booth across from him. Ryan hasn’t reacted yet, looking horrified, the other girl pulling on his sleeve and pointing at something Daryl can’t see. “They said you were covered in blood. Head to toe.”

Daryl knows he should react, should lie, should change the subject. Hell, he could even get up and disappear into the men’s room so that Ryan has time to collect his daughter. But he can’t say anything, frozen in his seat and staring into the little girls’ eyes. She looks fucking thrilled in a way that chills him. This isn’t something to break up small town boredom for her. This is something else.

“Did you kill someone? What did it feel like?”

Daryl chokes back bile.

“Lizzie, get up.” Her dad has finally found his wits and shown up to get his daughter away from the potential murderer.

“No,” she says defiantly. “I wanna know. I wanna know what it feels like when someone dies.”

Daryl finally tears his eyes away from her, looking up at Ryan. They both exchange looks of horror.

Daryl says the only thing he can think to say. Because he knows exactly what it feels like when someone dies, even if he didn’t kill him.

“It feels like shit, kid,” he says, eyes still locked on his former classmate. He’s not sure he can face the little girl again.

Ryan pulls his daughter up out of the booth as forcefully as he can without actually hurting her. They leave without ordering.

The moment they’re gone, Daryl switches sides in the booth. He hates putting his back to an entire room and to the door, and it makes his skin crawl to do it. But the idea of facing more questions or stares, even from people who aren’t as disturbed as Ryan’s little girl—that sets things crawling much deeper inside of him.

He hides in his corner until Rick’s cruiser passes the window on its way into the parking lot.


	9. Back Again

Rick invites Daryl to stay on his couch for the rest of the weekend. He knows he shouldn’t, that one night was already pushing the boundaries of what was appropriate and that he should have taken him directly from the Dairy Queen to a motel.   
  
But he’s too tired after dealing with the wreck to even want to get everything set up. And when he picks him up and finds Daryl sheet white because Rick forgot to do the one goddamn thing he knew he needed to do, the thought of immediately leaving him alone in some room with a dated floral comforter isn’t one he can even stand to entertain.

By Sunday evening, Rick’s apologized to him so much Daryl actually asks him to stop.

“Didn’t do it on purpose,” Daryl says. “And it wouldn’t’ve changed nothin.”

Rick reluctantly lets it go. As far as Daryl and guilt go, he’s got a lot of other things to worry about.

They eat an early dinner together on opposite ends of the couch, both of them wearing different pairs of Rick’s plaid pajama pants. Daryl still doesn’t seem to have much of an appetite, picking at his barbecue more than he actually eats it. Once or twice, Rick gently pushes him to take a bite or have some water. He tries his best to not be a hypocrite in the process.

“I’m gonna look over the budget tomorrow and see what we can do about getting you that motel room. You can come hang out at the station with me until then. I figured on calling Dr. Cloyd back in anyway.”

Daryl doesn’t answer right away, pushing pulled pork around with his fork. He spears a bit and eats it, chewing lethargically.

“Think I might be ready,” he says after swallowing. “To go home I mean.”

“You sure?” Rick knows it would be a good step if it’s actually true, but he has his doubts.

“Can’t live on your couch forever, or even some motel,” Daryl says. “Merle’d tell me to buck up anyhow.”

Rick frowns at his potato salad. None of that is the right answer to the question he actually asked, but he can’t really argue with him either. If Daryl asks to go home, then he has to take him home.

“Alright. Well, eat what you can and I’ll drive you out there.”

“Thanks.”

Daryl manages a couple bites of cole slaw before closing the styrofoam container and waiting silently for Rick to finish too.

* * *

The ride back to the trailer is quiet enough for Daryl to overthink, his mind running faster and faster with every revolution of Rick’s tires. What if the ceiling starts moving again? What if the walls bleed and Merle’s shadow haunts the corner of his eyes forever? What if he remembers more?

Truthfully, he knows he should’ve taken Rick up on his offer. For one thing, it would have meant another night on Rick’s couch. Another night free of reminders and long stretches of quiet that have his brain chasing dark memories with sweeping gaps that haunt him. He wants comfort and safety, and he'll find neither in the old trailer. 

Daryl hasn’t told Rick about the nightmares. He knows they’re not memories, that they couldn’t possibly be. But he’s had them more than once. Merle split open, the bath tub in their childhood shack of a home filled with his blood, Daryl drowning in it like some invisible hand was pushing him down, down, down. At least he has the luxury of knowing it’s not real. The house burned down years ago and took their momma with it. But that hasn’t stopped Daryl from waking up in a panic, a late night infomercial jarring him back to reality with images of some clueless fuck who couldn’t even operate a mop.

What Daryl wouldn’t give right now to be just some clueless fuck.

The scanner chatter is nothing but license plates and something about “that faulty security alarm at the plant again.” A sleepy Sunday evening in a town where the only horrible shit that has happened in years happened to him.

Rick turns and starts up the worn dirt driveway leading up to the trailer. Daryl can’t even look at it, his eyes down on the container of leftover barbecue that he knows he’ll only eat because Rick paid for it. When the car comes to a stop, he steels himself to get out and march up to the front door. But Rick stops him, the tone of his voice spreading through Daryl’s veins like ice.

“Stay in the car.”

Daryl finally looks up. The door to the trailer is hanging open on its hinges, swaying to and fro slightly in the late night breeze.

“Maybe I didn’t get it shut,” he says, but he knows that’s bullshit. Daryl always pulls it shut and then jiggles the handle to make sure it’s locked and closed. It’s second nature at this point.

“Stay in the car,” Rick repeats, opening the glovebox and pulling out his revolver and a small black flashlight. He checks to make sure it’s loaded and then shows Daryl a button. "You see so much as a shadow, you hit this." He clicks on the light and steps out of the cruiser. 

Daryl watches him approach the trailer, each move slow and calculated. When Rick finally reaches the door and steps inside, dread and anxiety overflow inside of him, seeping into his stomach like oil. If something happens to Rick because of him.

If something happens to Rick at all. Period.

He desperately wants to get out, to disobey and go in behind him. But Daryl’s a hunter, not a cop. And even if he could somehow offer more help than hindrance, he has nothing to help him with. It’s not like he could disarm some bloodthirsty killer by throwing a take out container at their face.

So he waits in the car, the styrofoam squeaking in his hands when he squeezes it too tightly.

* * *

Rick has very rarely had to clear a building, but it’s definitely always been low on the list of duties he actually enjoys. He hates the overabundance of adrenaline and that prickling fear of expectation. It’s like watching a horror movie when it’s too quiet, when you know the jump scare is coming but you don’t quite know when. Except it stretches on and on and more often than not, there's nothing but your own imagination. 

He moves room to room, shining the flashlight into the darkened interior. He attempts to turn on lights as he goes, but none of the switches are working. And even while he tries to provide a logical explanation with some kind of localized power outage, he knows the truth. Someone did this deliberately. Just like they like they pried the front door open, damaging it so much that it wouldn’t even close, leaving deep gouges in the metal.

His feet barely make a sound while he moves from the living room around the island that separates out the small kitchen, shining his light around to see if anyone has ducked down behind it. From there, he enters a bathroom. His heart pounds while he pushes the shower door open.

A messy bedroom with half-naked biker women on the walls comes next. It reeks of marijuana and he knows it has to be Merle’s, the thought crossing his mind while he shoves at the accordion doors of the closet with his foot. There’s nothing inside but wrinkled clothes on the floor and some drug paraphernalia. If Daryl ever can come back here, they’ll have to take care of that. Really, Rick could arrest Daryl for having it in his house even if it is his brother’s, but he’s got bigger concerns than whatever shit Merle Dixon got up to when he was alive.

Getting to Daryl’s bedroom requires crossing the living room again. Rick takes no risks here, rechecking the room as he goes, knowing full well if the intruder is still present, they could very well have moved. It’s still empty though. So is the second bathroom, a lot cleaner than the other. Daryl’s bedroom appears empty too. Rick surveys it. A few dirty clothes on the floor, some posters of actual motorcycles sans the scantily clad women. He starts to relax, taking this quiet moment to learn a little more about the man sitting out in his car.

There’s a crossbow sitting in the corner. Really, he already knew Daryl had one. A sheathed hunting knife sits on a worn wooden night stand next to the bed. There are some magazines about bikes and cars and hunting. On the sill under the window is a collection of different rocks and even what looks to be an arrow head.

Everything smells a bit like earth, and Rick inhales, intent on letting the scene sooth the last of his adrenaline-fueled nerves before he hears a rattle in the closet. The Colt comes back up to eye level in an instant.

“Come out with your hands up,” he says. He resists the urge to start firing rounds into the closet door. He wants to, God he wants to. Especially if whoever’s in that closet had anything to do with what Daryl’s gone through. But as soon as the news started to become an endless stream of his fellow boys in blue getting away with things that could only be deemed murder to him, he made a personal vow to only ever use his gun as a last resort.

“Come out  _now_ ,” Rick says, cocking the gun. Using it or not, hearing the handle of the Colt click like that could be one hell of a negotiating tool.

The only answer is another rattle. Rick takes a step toward the closet and puts the flashlight between his teeth.

“Last chance,” he says, already readying himself to kick open the folding doors, the tiny sliver of black where they’re slightly ajar making him more nervous than he ought to be. It's like he expects some sort of demonic entity to just appear in that space and stare back at him with glowing red eyes, taunting him with a grin that drips tar onto the floor. Holding onto his wits as well as he can, he brings a cowboy boot up and kicks at the doors, forcing them open.

There’s a moment where Rick’s flashlight hits only dry wall and a few clothes hanging sparsely from the closet bar. His brow furrows in confusion, and then something hisses at him and he stumbles back once, yanking the flashlight out from between his teeth and shining it down.

“Fuck.”

The possum answers back with another hiss, clearly not thrilled with the light angled at its face. Rick swipes a hand through his hair and tugs at his curls. The critter seems to have worked a pack of corn nuts out of what he presumes is Daryl’s hunting pack. Rick takes a few deep breaths to calm himself, his chest rising and falling between more angry hisses. When his heart rate has achieved some kind of normalcy again, he steps forward and chases it out of the closet and the bedroom, herding it toward the open front door.

“Go on. Git.”

It takes some coaxing and physically shoving the couch a good foot or two to finally get it the rest of the way out the front door, but he manages. He doesn’t follow it out though, opting instead to turn back to Daryl’s bedroom instead.

The hunting pack is undisturbed other than the small act of wildlife pilfering. Rick picks it up. Inside there are a few items. An emergency blanket still in the package. Some water purification drops. But otherwise it’s empty.

He grabs what he can, tugging clothes off their hangers and shoving them in. Next he opens the top drawer of Daryl’s dresser, figuring it’d be socks and underwear. He finds pajamas instead, picking up a few sets of pants and some ragged tee shirts and pushing those in. He’s not sure what Daryl would prefer it he was doing the packing, but he’d rather get him out of there as soon as possible.

In his underwear drawer, he tries his best not to take note of anything, grabbing what he grabs and stuffing it in. He reaches for socks too, noting that they’re mostly confined to the opposite side of the drawer. He figures he’s about done already has his mind on the bathroom when his fingers hit something solid.

He grasps it and holds it in the beam of the flashlight before he can even think about the fact that anything tucked into Daryl’s underwear drawer is probably meant to be private.

_Dr. Luxe’s Personal Lubricant. Water-based. Scent and flavor free._

Rick raises one eyebrow and then drops the bottle back down into the drawer. It lands on something else, flesh tones peaking out from between pairs of socks. Rick tells himself not to look, not to look, not to look, even while he pushes them aside.

The cover of the DVD features a man from behind, showing half his lower torso, a peek of bare ass, and a little upper thigh. Another man sits on his knees before him, a fist tangled in his hair, a big black X covering over what’s clearly happening in the scene.

Rick can’t stop himself at that point, brushing aside everything in the drawer with wild abandon. There’s nothing else though. Just the wooden bottom and a yellowed picture of a woman with Daryl’s eyes. He shakes himself out of whatever came over him and sets everything right while a new knot of guilt blooms in his stomach. 

He tries to rationalize away his prying. He just wanted to know that in their town, Shane wasn't the only other person like him. The knot remains, stubborn and unyielding. He ignores it, closing the drawer and walking to the bathroom, taking the essentials Daryl might need. Satisfied that Daryl could survive a while, he walks the makeshift suitcase out to the cruiser, setting it in the backseat. 

“What-” Daryl starts.

“It’s empty right now, but someone’s been here.”

“And a possum.”

“Yeah, I need to get that front door shut. Sit tight.” Rick turns back toward the trailer. If he has to, he’ll grab some duct tape from his trunk and tape the damn thing closed. Standing in the headlight beams from the cruiser, he reaches for the handle and pulls with all his might. His eyes find the lock plate, looking for any hope that the thing might actually close. And it takes a couple seconds for his eyes to register that there’s something there which doesn’t belong, his whole body freezing the second his brain says "wait." 

There, caught on a piece of bent metal is a tiny piece of red fabric, the color of it so bright he’s surprised he ever missed it. He pulls the flashlight out of his pocket, clicking it on to look closer. The metal of the lock plate is twisted and gnarled from the forced entry, making the cloth look more delicate where it flutters in the mild breeze. A fresh batch of adrenaline rises in Rick's body, and he rounds back on the car, reaching over Daryl to pop open the glove box again and root around until he gets his hands on an evidence bag.

Using only the plastic to touch it, he rips the red fabric loose, zipping the bag shut and bringing it close to his face. On the bottom corner, the red changes from fire engine to rust, and he knows it’s blood. The question is whose. One more violent tug on the trailer door and it finally wedges into place with a groan. It’s not completely shut, but it’s not hanging open in the wind either.

He’s on the scanner the second he’s back in the car.

“I want someone out the Dixon trailer ASAP. Treat it like a B&E. Dust the whole damn place for prints.”

“Got it, boss,” Chambler answers. Rick picks up the scanner again.

“ _With_  a partner,” he adds. Small town life often dictates riding alone, especially considering they’re usually dealing with speeders and horses that hopped a fence. But he doesn’t want to risk Chambler being out here on her own if someone decides to try again.

“Williams is here. We got it.”

Satisfied with that, he finally settles himself back in the driver’s seat. He holds the bag up to Daryl, already knowing the answer to his question before he asks it. Because he’s been in both their bedrooms and all through Daryl’s clothes. There wasn’t a damn thing in either room that could ever be described as anything but neutral.

“Does this look even remotely familiar to you?” he asks. “Something you wear. Something Merle wears. Some girl he brought back once. Some gi- somebody you brought back once?”

Daryl shakes his head.

“Alright,” Rick says, opening the glove box and tossing it in. He’ll have someone drive it to Abe first thing in the morning. “You’re staying with me again tonight. If you want to come back here when we’re done looking it over, I won’t stop you. If you want a motel, we can still arrange that too. Either way, I’m gonna have to put an officer on you at all times. I can’t- You being alone when whoever did this is clearly trying to finish the job isn’t gonna work for me.”

Daryl chews that over, bringing a thumb up to his mouth and worrying at the nail with his teeth. Rick waits, for a nod or a grunt of assent or something. Silence stretches on.

“Could use me as bait,” he finally offers.

The word “no” tumbles out of Rick’s mouth, quickly and aggressively and with a note of unwavering finality. No. No way in fucking hell.

“Makes sense,” Daryl says. “If they’re comin after me.”

“We aren’t that desperate,” Rick says.  _I will never be that desperate,_ he adds in his head. “We’ll figure this out. I can’t tell you much, but there are some good people working on this, and I will do everything I can to keep this from ending up in some box of unsolved bullshit. Without having to put you in harm’s way again. Okay?”

Daryl looks at him and then back out of the window. Not good enough. Rick gently grabs him by the chin and turns his face toward his, holding his eyes this time.

“Okay?” he asks again, tilting his head down and raising both eyebrows. Daryl finally nods, chin jutting gently into Rick’s palm.

“Okay.”

Satisfied, Rick backs out and drives them both home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dunnnnnn. 
> 
> I got a feeling we got some new theories now. Throw 'em in the commenttsss. 
> 
> Also Rick *slaps hands* stop snooping.


	10. Jurisdiction

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. The cruise happened and then I was worn out. Plus I actually started writing this chapter 2 weeks ago but I had to keep deleting huge chunks of it and circling back because it Wasn't Right. 
> 
> But anyway there's all the obligatory excuses. Here is a chapter.

Rick jolts awake around 4 a.m. on Monday morning after approximately three full hours of sleep. As soon as the time registers, he tries to roll back over. His eyelids are heavy enough that it should be doable, easy even. But while his body his still tired, his brain is already awake and running full speed through everything he needs to do that day.

_Send the new evidence to Ford, see what Chambler and Williams found at the Dixon trailer, check the budget, get the motel booked, start compiling missing persons that may be connected, figure out what to do about Carol. Ford, trailer, budget, motel, missing, Carol. Ford…_

At a little after five, he gives up and crawls out of bed, quietly making his way out of his bedroom toward the kitchen.

“Hey,” Daryl says softly. Rick looks over to see dark eyes squinting at him in the gray-blue light of the television.

“Good morning.”

“Couldn’t sleep?” Daryl asks, tugging the blanket off his legs and sitting up. “Yeah, me neither.”

Rick reaches for the light switch and flips it on. He looks at Daryl, finding sunken red-rimmed eyes looking back at him. He remembers the way blood crusted in the creases at the corners of those same eyes just days ago. The way tears gathered on his lashes and forced them into spiky clumps. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again.

Finally something trickles out.  

“Toast?” Rick asks, reaching up to scrub a hand over his eyes. At this point he may as well inject the coffee straight into his jugular.

“Yeah, sure.”

In the kitchen he toasts and butters bread while the coffee machine trickles hot red liquid into the pot. He rubs his eyes and blinks at it blearily until it turns black-brown again.

Back in the living room, Daryl sits on the edge of the couch, elbows resting on his knees, chin in the palms of his hands. The old black and white western he was watching a moment ago is gone, replaced by a woman in a bright red jacket that contrasts starkly with her bleached white, artificial smile.

“Sources say Dixon had a somewhat colorful past. His most recent arrest records show violent te-”

The room falls silent when Rick hits the power button on the television with his big toe, two sets of toast and steaming mugs still precariously balanced in his hands.

“You shouldn’t watch that shit,” Rick says, setting everything down on the coffee table.

Daryl doesn’t answer at first, staring down at the carpet and chewing on his bottom lip. Rick reaches for the remote, intent on turning the TV back on the old western again or some infomercial. Anything to kill the silence. 

“You know," Daryl says, and Rick changes direction to pick up his coffee instead. "I was pissed when I woke up at the station Thursday.”

Rick cocks an eyebrow at him over his mug.

“Not at y’all. At me,” Daryl says. “The last time Merle dragged me into one of his dumb bar fights and I barely missed doin actual time, shit kinda woke me up. I didn’t wanna go that way, have years of my life wasted inside of some six by six cell. Thing is, I never got into the drugs and shit like Merle, never wanted to really, but I was with him too much. Let him pull me into shit that wasn’t my business. Shit that gets you thrown in jail. Or worse.”

Daryl finally picks up his mug of coffee too, but he doesn’t drink it. Instead he stares down at the pitch black surface, the top rippling with the movement of his hands. 

“Told him I was done getting into his messes, that I was still his brother and that we’d still go huntin and fishin, drink beer and shoot the shit on Friday nights. But I wasn’t hangin around any of his skinhead meth buddies no more. We got in a fight over that too, a damn pitiful one because we were both still banged up from the one that got us arrested. But I did what I said I’d do.”

Rick sets his coffee down and reaches for Daryl’s forearm, gently squeezing at the suntanned skin.

“So when I woke up there in a cell, I thought I’d fucked all that up. Been nearly ten years since one of you assholes had to arrest me.” He looks at Rick. “Sorry. You-”

“I get it,” Rick says. Because he does. He’s seen the scars on Daryl’s back. And he’s not too naive to realize that the world they live in simply fails some people. And that somedays he’s just another cog in a machine asking folks to play by the rules of a system that only benefits some. 

Justice is meant to be blind, but sometimes seeing things is a hell of a lot more important.

“All’a this,” Daryl says, gesturing toward the television. He chews on his lip again, shaking his head so lightly that it’s almost imperceptible.

“What about it?”

“They’re already making me out to be a criminal, Rick. Like I did somethin. And I don’t even know what it is they’re already so damn sure I did.”

“Hey,” Rick says, scooting closer. Daryl turns automatically as he nears, allowing Rick to put his other hand on the opposite shoulder. He squeezes at skin left bare by Daryl’s DIY sleeveless tee. “ _Hey_ ,” Rick says again.

His other hand leaves Daryl’s forearm, holding his chin until Daryl stops staring down at his coffee and actually looks at him. Up close, his eyes are bloodshot, the red only making the blue of Daryl’s eyes more intense.

“They can think whatever they want,” Rick says, moving his arm back to Daryl’s shoulder. “They aren’t running this investigation.”

“You really believe I didn’t do any of this shit?”

Rick thinks about his next words carefully, or as carefully as he can on three hours of sleep.

“I believe people can change,” he says. “And you’ve done nothing to show me that you haven’t left your past behind you. All that stupid shit you did with Merle won’t even come into play for me while I’m trying to figure this all out. And even if it did, I know you well enough now to know what kind of man you are.”

“And if it ain’t up to you?”

“Then I’ll do everything I can to make sure they see what I see,” Rick says, finally pulling away. “Eat your toast.”

Daryl nods once and turns his body back toward the coffee table.

* * *

Monday morning does not go according to plan. Rick gets Daryl to the station and sets him back up the visitation room. By 8:35, he’s halfway through a meeting with Chambler and Williams, compiling together the red fabric he took from the door and any evidence they collected so he can send it off to Atlanta. They’re all three in an interrogation room, going over what they’ve found, when Espinosa knocks on the door. She’s not alone.

The woman next to her wears a dark black pencil skirt, shiny black pumps, a pressed white button-up, and a tailored black jacket. Her dark hair sits in locks that are wound into a bun atop her head. She’s stunning, and if Rick had any interest at all in women, he’d probably look a lot more than twice.

At any rate, he stands back up to his full height from where he’d been leaning over the interrogation table.  

“Can I help you?” he asks.

“Sheriff Grimes?” Her voice is cool and poised.

“That’s what they put on my name tag.” He points at it, actually in his full uniform for the first time since the previous Tuesday.

“I’m Special Agent Michonne Andrews.” Right on cue, she pulls the badge out of the inside of her coat and flips it open. Big blue letters spell out F-B-I.

“Oh shit,” Chambler says. “Sorry, I mean… Oh jeez.”

Agent Andrews cracks a smile at that, her lips parting to reveal two rows of pristine white teeth.

“What can I help you with, agent? Special agent?” Rick honestly has no clue how to address her. He wasn’t expecting anyone so soon. Not that expecting her would’ve made much difference.

“It’s Richard, right?” she asks.

“Rick.”

“Rick it is,” she says. “You can call me Michonne. And that’s the formalities done.”

“Mhm.” Rick looks down at the smattering of evidence bags on the table and runs a hand through his waves.

“What’s all this?” she asks.

“Daryl. Our, uh, presumed victim. Someone broke into his place yesterday. I found this stuck to the door, think there’s blood on it. The rest, Chambler and Williams collected,” he says, holding up the scrap of red fabric. Michonne takes it and turns it over in the light. “Was about to have someone run it over to Atlanta to the forensics guy. Or did you bring… I’ll be honest with you Michonne I’ve never worked with anyone from the FBI before.”

“I figured,” she says, but it’s not condescending. She likely just knows as well as Rick does that his county had never dealt with anything like this in the past. “We have a forensics lab at our Atlanta field office.”

“Should I send this there then?”

“Send them to your guy,” she says. "It's still your investigation for the time being." 

“Chambler, you mind?” Rick asks. 

“Not at all.” She and Williams collect the bags and leave him alone in the interrogation room with Michonne, who closes the door before sitting down opposite him. He takes the seat normally reserved for suspects.

“So this is a weird one, huh?” she asks, and Rick looks up at her, tilting his head slightly to the side. In response, Michonne folds her hands together on the tabletop.

“I’d say I’ve never seen anything like it, but that’s kind of a given out here in King County.”

“Truth be told, we aren’t even sure it falls under our jurisdiction yet. I’m here to find that out.” Michonne unfolds her hands and removes a notebook from inside her jacket.

“How can I help?” Rick asks.

“Walk me through...” She flips to a page in her notebook. “Walk me through Wednesday.”

Rick sighs and reaches for the cup of coffee he fixed earlier that morning, mostly cold now after the meeting. He drinks it to the dregs anyway.

“I guess it started with a phone call from Hershel Greene,” he says, and then he launches into the rest. The blood, Daryl, the thirteen potential victims, the highway, even the possum.

“And Daryl Dixon doesn’t remember anything?”

“A few bits and pieces.” He tells her about those too, about the notebook he’s having him keep and the therapist. She jots down her own notes, her hand moving quickly across the paper while he speaks.

“And those are the only IDs so far? Merle Dixon and Sophia Peletier?”

“So far.”

“Both locals?” she asks.

“Yes.”

“Have you looked at other missing persons?”

“I was gonna go through the files today and make a list of the ones that might fit. I was hoping, and I know it’s a big hope, that he’d ID them all without me having to drag everyone in the county in. Especially now that the word’s out. The rumor mill’l be starting soon if it hasn’t already.”

“Have you interviewed Maggie Greene?”

“Plan to.”

Michonne nods and makes another note.

“Have you talked to Carol Peletier yet?”

Rick looks down at the table and sighs.

“Hadn’t worked that one out yet. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re here.”

“What do you mean?” Michonne asks.

“Well, all we have is blood. No body. We have no actual proof any of these people are really dead. I can guess. I can assume. But definitively declare them all dead?” Rick shrugs. “It was a lot of blood, but thirteen is a lot of people.”

“You’re not sure what to tell her.”

“Not even a little. And Daryl…” Rick shakes his head. “He’s already being targeted, presumably by the person or people he escaped from, though I guess I can’t say that for sure either yet.”

“Let’s focus on Carol Peletier for now.”

“Right.”

“Do you know her well?” Michonne asks. “Not to assume everyone in a town this size knows each other.”

“I do,” Rick says. And he gives her the short version of Carol’s story, everything from Ed to the way she handled Sophia’s disappearance.

Michonne nods and turns the page in her notebook. 

“Rick, when I first joined the FBI, a lot longer ago than it may look, my superior gave me a piece of advice that I think might apply here. She told me that every victim is different, and while we might have some protocols for dealing with them, we ultimately have to consider who they are and what they need individually.” She pauses her scribbling and looks up at him. “I think you should tell her the truth.”

“And deal with the others on a case by case basis?” 

“Exactly. As for Daryl Dixon, what are your plans with him after the break-in?”

“Find some room in the emergency budget to get him a motel room and keep an officer stationed outside. Once we get the door at his place fixed, he can go back if he likes, but I plan on keeping someone close until I feel like he’s no longer under threat.”

And he wants to ask her if that’s a good idea, but he’s not some schoolchild eager for approval even if he feels like one in the moment. Michonne nods anyway.

“Is there anything else you haven’t mentioned to me yet?” she asks, already flipping her notes back to the first page. She starts reading back over them while she waits for an answer. Rick thinks through everything they’ve been over in the past hour while he rewinds the week. The only things he’s left out are things he doesn’t think are pertinent or necessary for her to know. Holding Daryl at the quarry while he cried about his brother, the fact that Daryl has spent the entire weekend on his couch, that he knows Daryl likes mayo, mustard AND ketchup on his burgers and prefers his coffee black. 

“I don’t think so.”

She keeps going through her notes, asking a question here or there where she feels she's missing something. Rick answers when prompted, but otherwise sits quietly and waits for her to finish.

“I’ve said it already, but this is a weird one," Michonne says. 

“Ford said that too. The forensics guy.”

“Like you said, there are no bodies, no proof there have been multiple murders. But you and I both know there probably were.”

“Probably.”

“The only two victims ID’d so far are local.”

“What does that mean?” Rick knows he learned once what constitutes a federal crime and the necessity of having federal officers brought in. But academy was a long, long time ago. And admittedly, other than where it pertained to narcotics, he never thought he’d actually need the information.

“That right now, technically, it’s not our jurisdiction.”

“Technically.”

“All it would take is one ID for an out-of-state victim. There are other ways it could fall to us too, but that would be the most likely.”

“Where do we go from here?”

“Well, I’d like to stick around for the week as a resource to you. Hopefully you’ll get some more IDs soon. I can help you take a look at those missing persons files as well if you want. Then we’ll re-evaluate on Friday, or sooner depending on what develops.”

“I’d like that,” Rick says. “How about a fresh cup of coffee, and then we’ll get started?”

“In a moment.”

Rick tilts his head, his hand resting on the handle of his coffee mug. He works his thumb around the curve of the porcelain. Across from him, Michonne puts the notebook away and folds her hands on the tabletop once more

“This doesn’t really pertain to anything, but how are you holding up?” she asks.

“I’m sorry?”

“Your eyes are bloodshot, you have bags the size of Texas, you're sluggish. When’s the last time you had a full night’s sleep, sheriff?”

Rick huffs quietly.

“Feels like a year ago,” he says.

“Another piece of advice from my old boss,” Michonne says. “There’s no shame in prescription sleeping pills.”

She smiles kindly and stands up, smoothing the front of her clothes with her hands and re-buttoning her jacket. 

“I’ll take that coffee now.”

Rick nods and escorts her out of the room.


	11. A Week's Worth of Pie

McCoy’s Motel and RV Park is a fixture in Kendall, King County’s only town (and county seat by default). Built in the late seventies by Jolene and Bobby McCoy, every room holds wall-to-wall olive shag carpeting. A single fading billboard along the nearest interstate highway advertises it as “historic,” but if anyone asked Daryl, he could list a hell of a lot of other adjectives more fitting.

Outdated, dingy, in-serious-need-of-some-reality-TV-makeover-bullshit.

Okay, so that last one might be stretching the definition of “adjective” a bit if he's remembering high school English right. 

At least the bed is soft and clean. And really, he’s not that picky, even if he would have painted over the orange shell-patterned wallpaper a long ass time ago.

“The sad thing is, I think they actually did replace this carpet a few years ago,” Rick says, opening the closet and pulling out the luggage rack. “Sorry we don't have the funds for the Ritz. Or have a Ritz.”

“S’alright,” Daryl says, surveying the room. In all honesty, it’s nicer than anywhere else he’s ever stayed long-term. The décor is heinous, but there’s a television with more than three channels, Merle hasn’t put his fist through any of the walls, and there aren’t rust stains in the bath tub.

Plus, there’s a continental breakfast every morning. It might be scrambled eggs and cereal, but it’s something. If he ever has an appetite again, he might even be excited about that. He always did like Cinnamon Toast Crunch. 

Rick nods and sits on the edge of the paisley comforter, throwing one leg over the other, his boot bouncing in the air.

Glancing at him in the mirrors of the closet doors, Daryl sets to opening and closing drawers. In the very bottom, he finds a Bible, so fresh and new looking that he doubts anyone has touched it for as long as it’s been there. No need to break tradition. His clothes will all fit in the first two drawers anyway.

“Thanks for settin' this up,” Daryl says, pulling out pajama pants and tattered jeans before folding them into the drawers. He moves on to his socks and underwear next, a little embarrassed that Rick has even seen how worn his boxer-briefs are.

He’s on the second pair before he thinks about what else Rick might have seen.  

“What?” Rick asks.

“I said ‘thanks for-’”

“No, you froze just then. What is it? Did you…?”

“Nothin,” Daryl says. If Rick did see what else he keeps in that drawer, then it’s probably better if they don’t talk about it anyway. “You don’t gotta hang around here. I know you got a lot to do.”

“Honestly, I’m puttin off what I gotta do,” Rick says. “But I’m waiting for Williams too. Got held up in a traffic stop.”

“She on prisoner duty?” Daryl asks.

“You’re not a prisoner, Daryl,” Rick says. “I told everybody on rotation if you need to go anywhere within the county, they should take you.”

He was actually kidding, mostly, but it seems pointless to say anything. Rick's clearly in some kind of mood; he's stopped bouncing the boot in favor if playing with the a loose string in the bed spread. So Daryl sets to finishing with his few clothes, hanging up a couple of shirts because he knows at some point he’s gonna have to go back to work. He hasn’t even called any of the men he does odd jobs for to tell them what’s going on. If he even still works for any of them between the unannounced leave of absence and news circulating around town. 

When he turns around, Rick’s there, standing at the foot of the bed with his hand extended.

“Take it.”

“What?” Daryl finally notices the money folded in Rick’s palm. He bows up instantly. “Don’t need your charity.”

“Call it a loan then,” Rick says. “Until you find your wallet or get everything replaced.”

Daryl squints down at it, not moving.

“Daryl, you’re gonna need things,” Rick says, sighing and shifting when Daryl still doesn’t budge. “Look, if you don’t take it, I’ll just come back here myself later on with groceries. You may as well pick out what you like.”

Daryl relents, reaching forward and sliding his hand across Rick’s. He puts the money in his pocket without looking at it. He's already telling himself that whether it's a Jackson or a Franklin, he won't spend all of it. A couple things to survive and he'll give back the change. 

“You can pay me back,” Rick says. “I just need y-”

Rick clears his throat at the knocking on the door.

“That’ll be Williams,” he says, wading through the carpet to answer the door.

“Boss,” she says, with a mock salute, her eyebrows going up when she looks around the room. "Oh God, this place hasn't changed a bit. Sorry, Daryl." 

Daryl shrugs. 

“Yeah, it's... Listen, I should...uh.” Rick jerks his head toward the door. He stops, tilts his head and makes sure Daryl's looking him in the eyes. “Hey, you can still call me if you need anything, okay?”

“Think I’ll be good,” Daryl says, partially because he knows Rick really does have other shit more important than looking after him, and partially to make Rick stop looking after him with  _that_ face. 

“He’s in good hands.” Williams smiles and pats Rick on the shoulder. “It probably wouldn’t come to that, but you know I’m the best shot in King County. Next to you.”

Rick laughs.

“I won’t tell Chambler you said that,” he says, forcing a smile.

"Please don't," Williams says, but Rick ignores her this time. Or maybe the words don't even register to him; Daryl doesn't know.

Nodding at Daryl repeatedly, a bit like a sad bobblehead, he turns slowly and walks out.

* * *

On Mondays, Carol makes all the pies for the week. On a table in the back room of the diner, she lines up metal pie tins up in rows of four. While various fillings simmer in pots on the stove, she rolls out dough and pops bottoms in each of the dishes. When she’s done filling and adding a top if the particular pie calls for one, she wraps it in foil and labels it with a marker and quick baking instructions. Each one gets stacked carefully in the freezer, ready to be pulled out and baked as needed.

Rick knows all this now because he found her in the kitchen after asking the busboy, Ron if his name tag is right.

“Sheriff,” Carol says. There’s a spot of flour on her cheek and a little of what looks like blackberry filling on her apron. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to talk to you about something,” Rick says. He resists the urge to add ‘but it can wait’ even though he really wants to.

“This is my last batch,” she says, pulling a pot off the stove and spooning filling into four of the tins. “Let me finish up and I’ll get us both a cup of coffee.”

Rick chews that over while she moves to put the empty pot in the sink. She’s back at her workstation artfully latticing dough over apples before he answers.

“Alright,” he says. It’s probably for the best that she’s sitting down anyway. She’s strong, but hard news is hard news no matter who’s receiving it.

It doesn’t take her long to finish. Rick even helps her carry the last few into the large walk-in, stacking them among other pies, all of them on a metal shelving unit between hamburger meat and frozen fruits that are likely parts of future pies themselves.

Carol insists on him going to sit back out in the diner after that. She says she’ll be along in a minute with the coffee. He nods at that, strategically choosing a booth in the corner near the bathrooms. The place isn’t busy, but he and Carol are both prominent members of a small community and he doesn’t want to risk obligatory pleasantries in the middle of this. Or he wants to minimize that risk as much as he can anyway.

“Fresh cream too,” she says, setting a steaming cup and a small metal pitcher in front of him. Rick doesn’t touch either, watching her slide into the booth across from him. “What’s this about?”

Right. He’s rehearsed about twenty different versions of this conversation in his head and he still doesn’t know which is the right one to go with.

“Sophia,” he says, and Carol pauses with her cup halfway to her mouth. She sets it back down without taking a drink.

“What about her?” she asks.

“Do you know Daryl? Dixon?”

“A little,” she says. “Seems good enough when you take the time to look past Merle’s shadow. What does he have to do with Sophia?”

Rick takes the time to fix his coffee, keeping his eyes trained on what he’s doing instead of on her.

“Is it true what they’re saying about him?” she asks. “Does it have something to do with my baby girl?”

“What are they saying about him?” He keeps stirring his coffee long past the point of uniformity.

“That he killed someone. Aiden Monroe was in here the other day spouting off about it and how the Dixons should’ve been locked up or run out'a town a long time ago.”

“I've still never figured out how Reg and Deanna Monroe produced the two biggest assholes in King County,” Rick says, finally laying his spoon back down on the saucer. Carol purses her lips, leaning back in the booth and crossing her arms.

“Is she dead?” Carol asks. “That’s why you’re stalling, isn’t it? Just tell me what you came to tell me, sheriff.”

Rick runs his hand back through is waves, inhaling deeply. The truth. Michonne thought she could handle it and Rick did agree with her on that, though that was a lot easier to do without Carol actually sitting across from him.

“Truthfully, we don’t know.”

Carol’s eyes narrow, her bottom lip quivering slightly. Then she’s completely blank. It’s a blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment, a tiny crack in the otherwise impenetrable armor she erected as the days ticked on back during the search for her daughter.

“Then why are you here?” She looks at him, her head tilting slightly, blinks coming in such steady increments that he’d swear she was counting them off.

“Before I say this, you should know that current evidence points to the fact that Daryl is also a victim in all this, not a perpetrator.” No response. “On Wednesday morning of last week, Daryl was discovered at the Greene Farm covered in,” Rick pauses, swallows thickly, “covered in blood. Some of the DNA on him matched your daughter's.”

Another tiny crack, there and gone again. Carol shifts forward, rests her arms on the table.

“So she is dead?”

“We don’t know that. There aren’t any bodies.”

“Yet,” she says. “I can see it in your eyes. You believe she’s gone, that the body is just a formality.”

Rick doesn’t want to answer that. That isn’t part of the truth he was prepared to tell.

“Don’t you?” she accuses. 

“We don’t know,” he repeats.

“But you feel it.” Another shift, arms crossed again. She casts her eyes down at her coffee, untouched and no longer steaming. “I guess I already knew that. I quit hoping a long time ago.”

A pause. Elsewhere in the diner, someone trips up. Rick faintly registers the distant clatter of silverware falling to the floor, plastic on linoleum. 

“Sometimes good things happen whether or not we still have hope,” he says. “Maybe we’ll both be wrong. That’s something I _can_ hope for.”

There’s a faint line of water pooling against Carol’s bottom lids despite how passive she seems outwardly. The surface may be calm, but the water underneath is roiling. All rip tides and undertow. Her blinks are no longer steady, erratically battling back the evidence that she feels something.

“Maybe it’s for the best,” she says. “If she went through something horrible, maybe it’s better she doesn’t have to live with it.”

Rick opens his mouth to say something else, anything else, when his phone starts to chime. He swears in his head, apologizes to Carol and goes to dismiss it after glancing at the name. It’s Ford. He hits the red button and apologizes to her once again. Not silencing his phone before having this conversation isn't the worst mistake he's already made on this investigation. His mind goes to Daryl again, having to sit in that decrepit Dairy Queen listening to the ramblings of Lizzie Samuels. 

Trying to push it away, he reminds himself that he's only human, but it doesn't do anything to lighten the weight that has settled itself into his stomach. He attempts to think of something else to say to Carol, but he comes up short there too, staring at her instead.  

“It doesn’t matter,” she says curtly. “Now if you’ll excuse me, sheriff, I need to go make another pot of sweet tea.”

She slides out of the booth after that, leaving behind a full coffee cup and a small-town cop so far out of his element that he may as well not even be on the chart.

Not sure how he could possibly feel any worse, but knowing it’s also pretty damn likely that he will, Rick unlocks his cell phone and returns the call.


	12. The List

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all, thank you so much to Cielia for the beautiful art of Daryl in that first scene at the farm. I'm so honored. Please show her some love at her [tumblr](https://fae-voritensfw.tumblr.com/) or in the comments (I'll make sure she gets it.)
> 
> Second of all, I should't have started this with "first of all" because I have nothing to follow it with. Happy reading!

Rick finds Michonne in the interrogation room, a laptop in front of her running to a small printer sitting in a chair. There are boxes of files stacked in a corner, dating back to 1990.

The first photo he notices is Sophia, smiling up at him in black and white from a printed copy of her file. He sighs and sinks into the only free seat, plopping his hat down on one thigh.

“I found some other potentials,” she says, glancing at him over the top of a laptop with a small white label that informs him it’s property of the FBI’s Atlanta field office.

He sifts through the small stack of files next to Sophia’s. Exhausted in a way that feels more soul than body (or maybe both), he pulls out the ones he knows are for sure, working his notebook out of his pocket to check them against his list.

“What are you doing?” she asks, watching him separate them into stacks.

“Just got off the phone with the forensics guy. These are all definite matches,” he says, going through the stack of possibilities to make sure he hasn’t missed anyone. The agent reaches across the table and pulls the files back.

“Wayne Dunlap, Shawn Greene, Tomas Gutierrez, Axel Wiley.” Michonne pauses, frowning. “Jacqui White.”

“What?” Rick asks, staring down at his notebook. There are two more names there Michonne hadn’t pulled yet. Nine out of thirteen identified. He supposes it could be worse. And Ford said he still had a couple tricks up his sleeve.

“Serial killers tend to be ritualistic,” she says. “Most of them have a type. We’ve got men, women, young, old, black, white, latino. Am I missing anything?”

“Some have records, some volunteered at the old folks home every Saturday.” He runs his hand through his hair, smoothing it back. “That’s how we found out Jacqui White was missing. She used to bake stuff—banana bread, zucchini loaves—take it around the nursing home, visit with the patients. Every Saturday like clockwork. When she didn’t show for two weekends in a row, they called it in.”

Another frown forms between her eyebrows. She looks back down at the papers. 

“Shawn Greene any relation?” she asks.

“Yeah. Maggie’s brother.”

“The others?”

“Arrested Axel a few times. Good guy, but he couldn’t lay off the pills. Former Sheriff pulled Gutierrez in for armed robbery. Said he scared the shit out of her and had probably done worse. Just hadn't been caught.”  

“And Dunlap?” she asks.

Rick reaches for the files again, pulling them back across the table. He didn’t really remember him at all, probably because there hadn’t really been a search. Apparently he’d been hitching through Georgia on his way to Amicalola Falls, intent on thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail. The last text message he’d sent had apparently been pinged to Highway 166. Probably everyone assumed he’d moved on and just hadn’t managed to check in. Sometimes people assumed the best to a fault.

Rick shrugs.

“He was an organ donor,” he says.

“Apparently.”

“I’ve got two other names if you wanna pull those too,” he says. “Then we’ll start with the other possibilities and see if we can get DNA for those.”

“Shoot,” she says, turning her attention back to the computer.

“Samuel Figg.”

He waits quietly while she types.

“Hmm.”

“What?”

“He’s not in your system. Give me a sec.” More typing, clicking, typing. Rick sets an elbow on the tabletop and leans into his hand, closing his eyes. For some reason, he’s just now realizing he’s had a headache since the diner, since he saw Ford pop up on the caller ID. Or maybe before that.

He inhales deeply, tries to clear even one horrible thing out of his mind. It doesn’t really work, but his brain does wander back to Daryl. He hopes he’s getting along with Williams. The more anxious part of him throws out an image of a motel door swinging open on its hinges, a scrap of red fluttering to the shag like a calling card.

He doesn’t have an answer for the scrap they found at the trailer yet. Ford said Chambler had just gotten to his lab when he hung up.

He’s reminding himself that Williams really is a great shot when the printer whirs to life. He sits up.

“Samuel Figg,” Michonne says, taking out the first sheet. Her eyes dart back and forth while she reads down the page, brow furrowed slightly in concentration. “Never would’ve flagged this one at all without the name. Student at the Art Institute of Atlanta. Girlfriend said he stopped answering her texts and calls and then didn’t show up to class on Monday.”

“Anything tying him to King County?”

“Nothing. Want me to call the girl when we’re done here?” she asks.

Rick starts nodding before she even finishes the question.

“Yeah, that’d be…” More nodding. “Thank you.”

“Done. I'll try for cell records too. What’s the other name?” she asks, her hands hovering over the keyboard of her laptop.

“Amy Harrison,” he says. Across from him, Michonne’s face falls immediately. It doesn’t stop her from typing in the name though. The printer whirs again.

“I didn’t realize she went missing here,” she says quietly. She doesn’t even reach for the papers when they’re done printing, so Rick does instead, looking over the file. Apparently she’d been driving to the coast to meet some friends. Another cell phone ping leading to King County. Peachtree Avenue to be specific.

“Guess you knew her?” he asks. In his head he can see where Peachtree Avenue connects with Highway 166. And with Old Kendall Road, which happens to be the location of Carol’s diner.

“I feel like I did,” she says. “My wife’s little sister.”

“Oh.” Rick glances down at the file again, finding “ _Andrea Harrison, sister_ ” as the person who made the initial report in Fulton.

“She went missing before we met.” Michonne holds her hand out for the file and Rick slides it into her palm. “I’ve heard a lot about her though. I’ve tried to look for her a few times during free time. I guess I thought...”

Rick nods.

“Yeah.”

“I can talk to my wife as well then, see if anything lines up.”

“You don’t have to,” Rick says. “If you need me to handle it.”

“I can handle it. Do you mind me mentioning the others?” she asks. “I can see if there’s a connection.”

“I trust you to do what you think is best,” he says. “You probably know what that is better than I do.”

Rick looks down at the small stack of other missing people and stands up, plopping his hat back on his head. There’s too much to do for him to keep sitting there. There’s also too much to do for him to drop by the motel, even if he really really wants to. But a phone call wouldn’t be out of the question.

“Where are you headed?” she asks.

“Maggie Greene.”

Michonne nods at him.

“You alright?” she asks.

Not even a little bit.

“All things considered,” he says. “You?”

She shrugs, eyes down.

“All things considered.”

* * *

Daryl’s putting a few groceries into the mini fridge of his hotel room when the phone rings. He figures there’s only one person who knows where he is, so it’s either Rick or the front desk.

“Yeah?” he says, picking it up and automatically glancing at the door, like he expects Rick to walk in while they’re already speaking. If it even is Rick. Through the sheer orange curtain he can see Sasha’s cruiser sitting in the parking lot.

“Well, shit. You are most certainly not Lily.” The man on the line laughs. Daryl hangs up without bothering to answer, figuring they’ll check the room number again or call the front desk. When the phone rings again, he huffs in frustration.

“Still ain’t Lily,” he says.

“Daryl?” Rick asks.

“Shit, hey.”

“Who the hell is Lily?”

“No idea. Somebody just called for her. Wrong number, I guess.” He sits down on the edge of the bed, frowning slightly at the idea that his ass has to be anywhere near something so hideous as the paisley comforter. “What’s up?”

“Just checking in,” Rick says. “I, uh...” A long pause. “Just wanted to make sure you’re good. And Williams too.”

Daryl picks up the phone, stretching the cord as far as it’ll go. He has hold it up in the air and span the spot from the other edge of the bed to the window so he can push back the curtains enough to see that she’s actually in the car. She spots him immediately, her head perking up. He gives her a thumbs up.  
  
_Everything's just as boring in here as it has been the rest of the day._

“Yeah, we’re good. When ya comin ho-” He clears his throat. “When ya comin by?”

“Soon as I can.” On the other end of the line, Daryl hears a car door shut. “Daryl, I gotta go, but I’ll see you later.”

“Yeah.”

The line goes dead before he can say  _“be careful.”_

* * *

The Greene Farm looks eerie under the overcast sky, like the opening shot of a horror film where a couple from the city moves into an old farmhouse haunted by ghosts or a cursed rocking chair.

Or maybe it’s just haunted by the events that transpired in the woods out back less than a week ago. By the events that led to those events. By years of missing people and a trail of blood that still makes no goddamn sense. 

The front door opens before he can knock, a large man standing inside in overalls and a camo tee. Rick can’t remember his name. Something with an O. Otto? He should know it, considering he had to type it at least five times for the police report, but there are thirteen other names that currently take precedence in his brain.

“Sheriff, what can I do ya for?” Maybe Otto asks.

“Maggie around?”

“Just missed her. Left for work about five minutes ago.”

“At the diner?” Rick feels a little dread at that prospect already. He absolutely does not want to go back to that diner today.

“Her other job. Works at the feed store a couple days a week.”

Rick tips his hat, already turning to leave.

“Thank you.”

“She in some kind of trouble?” Maybe Otto calls after him.

“Not likely,” Rick answers with a glance back. The fact that she would have something to do with the death of her own brother seems even more far-fetched than her having anything to do with a string of murders at all. As far as he can tell, he and Michonne are currently looking for ties—the strands of silk connecting all the flies caught in the web. Maggie Greene connects at least two, three if you count Daryl.

He resists the urge to call the motel again the second he’s in the car. He’s not even sure why he wants to. To fill the silence? Sure, there’s the radio, but he’s learned to tune it out unless something serious floats across. Or unless he’s bored.

He misses being bored.

Like he can hear his train of thought meandering down the track, Ford calls again the second he turns out of the Greene driveway. Rick answers reluctantly. On second thought he’d rather have the suffocating silence.

“Yeah?”

“Got that little swatch of fabric analyzed for you.”

“Match anything?”

“Yes and no,” Ford says.

“Yes and no?” What the fuck is that supposed to mean?

“Matches a Tamiel Tabor. Reported missing in Gwinnett County last week.”

“When?”

“Friday, but no one's seen her since Wednesday,” Ford says. “I’ll text you the spelling so you can pull the file.”

Rick sighs, rolls his hands around the steering wheel, momentarily imagines driving past the feed store and never stopping. He could wire Daryl some money for a bus ticket and they could start a new life in Canada. He shakes that thought away as quick as it came. 

(Why the fuck is he imagining a new life with Daryl anyway?)

“Yeah, thanks,” he says, hitting the edge of Kendall. He passes by the motel and wishes he could whip into the parking lot. Instead he keeps driving. The feed store is on the other side of town, a whole mile farther. “That it?”

“That not enough for you, hoss?” Ford asks, but there’s no bite in it.

“More than I ever wanted,” Risk answers, his eyes already spotting the red and white sign of the feed store in the distance. The car ahead of him slows in response to having a cop behind them, and he contemplates turning on his lights just so they’ll get the hell out of his way. At this very moment, he wouldn't take the time to pull them over and write them a ticket if they were going ninety in a school zone. 

“What can I say, sheriff? I’m a giver.”

“Obviously.”

Ford says some kind of vague goodbye after that, and Rick answers automatically, pulling into a parking spot directly in front of a display of bundled firewood. Outside of the car, the air smells like fertilizer, a smell that only gets stronger when he pulls open the door and steps inside.

“Welcome to Buck’s.” A young girl in a bright red apron smiles at him from behind the register. “Can I help you find somethin today, sir?”

“Maggie Greene?”

“Stockin flea dope. Aisle ten.”

Easy enough. Rick follows the numbers, finds Maggie on ten as promised, putting small white boxes into a glass display case.

“You need help, sheriff?” she asks, using her index finger to straighten a row of boxes.

“Actually wanna talk to you, Miss Greene. When you have a moment.”

“About last Wednesday?” she asks.

“Sort of.”

“Go ahead,” she says, picking up another small stack of boxes and sliding it into place.

“Daryl tells me he and his brother were in the diner Monday. That his brother was, we’ll say crass.”

“Wrote that he’d, quote, like to fuck my perky little tits, end quote, on the receipt,” Maggie says. “Misspelled perky too.”  
  
In the unlikely event that they find Merle Dixon alive, Rick really is going to have to have a chat with him. 

“Yeah, sorry about that," Rick says. "That day at the diner is pretty much the last thing Daryl really remembers other than being on a highway that doesn’t lead from the diner to his home. I’m wonderin if you saw anything unusual or even heard them say they were going somewhere else after. Anything at all, no matter how unimportant it might seem.”  
  
She takes a second to think about it, working while she does.  
  
“Sorry, no,” she says, pausing to look at him when she answers.

Rick nods, exhaling and preparing himself for his next question. He looks around, leans out of the aisle to make sure they’re still alone other than the cashier up at the front of the store.

“I’m also wonderin if you can think of any connection between Merle Dixon and Shawn.”

At the name ‘Shawn,’ she drops about half a dozen boxes of Frontline, all of them scattering across the yellowed tile.

“What?”

The headache is back, or maybe it was there the whole time, his awareness of it yet again pushed to the back of his mind. Becoming aware of it also makes him aware of all the tension in his neck, tension that flows into his shoulders and upper back. His muscles feel bound together by ropes of ache. 

_Hot breaths on his cheek, his cock sliding against another, beads of cum on hideous emerald green carpet that shifts into an even more hideous olive shag, a bottle of lube hidden in an underwear drawer._

Rick clears his throat, focuses on the present moment, on Maggie Greene staring at him like he just slapped her.

Massaging the space between his eyebrows, Rick tries to arrange the words right.

“It’s important to know that we have no proof anyone is dead before I explain this.”

“My brother’s blood was on Daryl Dixon,” she says, calmly picking up the boxes and putting them on the shelf. They’re in the wrong spot according to the bright yellow labels, but Rick can’t bring himself to tell her that. He doesn’t mention the fact that her hands are trembling either.

“So was Merle’s. Among others.”

There’s a long pause where Maggie freezes with her hands inside the display case, resting lightly on the tops of boxes. Her eyelids close for several seconds; her shoulders rise high and deflate slowly.

“Okay,” she says, clearing her throat after. "No, no connection." 

“If you think of anything, please call the station,” Rick says. “I’d really appreciate it if you asked around at home too.”

“Okay,” she repeats.

“Thank you,” Rick says, nodding at her and turning to leave. When he rounds the corner out of the aisle, he catches sight of her slumped over in his periphery, her shoulders shaking. He doesn’t look back. Between Carol and the list of names and this, he can’t do anything else. Not today. Besides, there's nothing he could say to her right now that would help anyway.   
  
Sometimes people just have to feel things. 

“Find her?” the cashier asks, leaning casually on the counter.

“You and her know each other well?” Rick asks, already halfway out the door.

“Since we was about yay high, sir,” she says, holding her hand out at knee-height. 

“She could probably use a friend right now.” The bell above the door dings when he steps through it. 

At the edge of the parking lot, he has two choices. Left back into Kendall. Right toward Shane’s place.

He barely pauses before he cuts the wheel. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You better have turned that damn wheel left, Rick.


	13. Zero Tolerance

Rick makes it all of a hundred yards out of the feed store parking lot before he slams on his brakes, tires squealing on the pavement. He veers the cruiser off onto the shoulder, kicking up loose gravel and dust before rolling to a stop in front of a sun-faded wooden sign that says “eggs 4 sale” in uneven black letters.  

Panting, he leans forward and rests his head on the steering wheel, forcing himself breathe in and out as evenly as he can. He wants to pull back on the road. He wants to keep driving straight to Shane’s house, to fuck out that ache in his neck and that even deeper ache in his soul.

It won’t work.

It never works.

Plus Shane will be an even bigger pain in the ass after the way he left things last time.

“Jesus, Grimes, what the hell are you doin?” Rick mutters, rolling his head to the left to breathe cooler air.

His eyes fall on the highway next to him, the barely visible white shoulder line right outside his window, the dotted yellow a few feet away.

The turn signal clicks over and over, the rhythm digging into some place deep inside that aches and aches.

_Thir-teen, thir-teen, thir-teen._

He presses palms against his eyelids, exhaling. When he releases the pressure and blinks, the highway turns into swirling patterns of red.

“Espinosa, ETA?” Williams’s voice crackles out of the radio. Rick turns his face away from the imagined gore right as he swears he finds blood splatter on the yellow line. His selective hearing picks up on the chatter and connects it to Daryl, pulling him back to reality.  

“Caught Peletier swerving all over Elm, sorry,” Espinosa says, and Rick reaches for his walkie.

“Ed?” he asks, his voice feeling foreign in his own mouth.  

“Yeah. Guess he got out on probation last week. So much for that.” A brief pause, some male speech that Rick can’t make out other than the words ‘south of the border,’ Espinosa swearing quietly in Spanish. “Okay, I have to drive this drunk hijo de puta back to the station now while he rambles on and on about all the parts of me he’d like to stick his pathetic excuse for a dick, and then I’ll be on my way.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll relieve Williams,” Rick says, already checking the mirror and whipping the cruiser around.

* * *

Daryl has spent at least the past half hour staring at the television, the moving pictures on the screen flitting past his eyes without making any kind of lasting impression. He’d turned the thing on after he and Rick talked, leaving the channel on whatever came up before sitting cross-legged on the end of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees.

Eyes out of focus, everything is blue light, red light, blue, red, blue. The people on the television could be speaking a different language and he wouldn’t know.

The incident at the trailer, moving into the motel, grocery shopping, Rick—they’d all distracted him for a bit. But then things had gotten quiet, too quiet. Now all he can think about is Merle.

There’d been days he wanted to kill that asshole himself. But he was the only family he had left. Is?

Was.

He can’t even start to convince himself that his brother is still alive. Trying to fan even the smallest bit of hope into some kind of actual flame feels like trying to start a fire with wet wood during a windstorm. Nothing wants to catch. And he doesn’t have the energy to force it to.

He remembers the time his brother fashioned a homemade flamethrower out of a squirt gun full of gasoline and a blow torch. He’d split Daryl’s lip open for laughing at him when he lit his own boots on fire and had to be put out with the water hose. At least he’d had the sense enough to turn it on before his little experiment.

_Tap, tap, tap._

It takes Daryl longer than it should to realize there’s other sound in his room besides the television. It takes him a little longer still to climb up out of his own head.

“Daryl?”

Feet falling into the ocean of carpet, he swims to the door and pulls it open. He has to admit that Rick makes a pretty good damn picture, most of his features in shadow, his profile framed by the pale orange beginnings of a Georgia sunset.

Daryl nods once at him and Rick steps inside, tossing his hat onto the nearest piece of furniture, a small wooden desk with a little pad of motel “stationery” on top, envelopes included. In case you want to impress your friends and family by mailing them letters from some random ass town in Georgia that they’ve never heard of.

Rick falls on the bed like he lives there, sprawling across the foot of it and staring up at the popcorn ceiling. Through his uniform, Daryl can make out the faint curvature of his rib cage and the slight jut of his hip bones. He licks his lips and turns his attention to a random spot on the carpet by his feet.

“Long day?” Daryl asks, trying to decide if it would be weird if he sat on the bed now. He sits in the chair.

“You could say that,” Rick says, swiping a hand over his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks as exhausted as Daryl feels. “How were things here?”

“Boring,” Daryl says. It’s mostly the truth anyway. Rick doesn't need to know the rest of it. 

“You get some food?” Rick asks.

“Yeah.” Though now that he thinks about it, he realizes he hasn’t actually eaten any of it.

“This place doesn’t have a mini bar, does it?” Rick asks, glancing over at the small fridge in the corner. He knows as well as Daryl does that it was empty that morning.

“Aren’t you supposed to be guarding me or somethin?” Daryl asks, kicking lightly at Rick’s boot. “Kinda hard to do if you’re three sheets in the wind”

“Fair enough.”

“There’s a vendin machine though if you wanna drown your sorrows in a Coca-Cola or some cheese Doritos.”

Daryl’s joking, but Rick sits up, grunting a bit and rubbing the back of his neck. He angles his head down, fingers digging into the space between his shoulders so hard that Daryl's tempted to get up and offer a hand. Like he senses that thought, Rick darts his blue eyes up at him. 

“Fancy a walk?” he asks, sliding off the comforter that even the Salvation Army would send straight to the dump.

Daryl shrugs and follows him outside. In the brief time since Rick arrived, the sun has all but set, the sky a pale indigo already dotted with a few starts. One of the buzzing security lights in the parking lot mixes with the last remnants of dusk, coloring everything around them a pale yellow-orange.

Watching the sidewalk while they walk, he keeps his eyes on Rick’s shadow, studying his gait and the way he carries himself when he walks. He nearly misses the turn off into the small corridor with the vending and ice machines, the latter plastered with a weathered piece of computer paper declaring it “temprarily out of ordar.”

Rick fishes in his pocket, pulling out a set of keys that he transfers to the other side before removing a couple of wrinkled one dollar bills and a fistful of coins.

“Hold these for me,” Rick says, tilting the change into Daryl’s palm where he sorts through it with his index finger, the single point of stuttering contact making Daryl’s whole body shiver once.

“You okay?”

“Just a chill.”

“Mhm.”

Finding what he needs, Rick feeds change into the machine, swearing when it spits back a couple of his nickels. He finally gets enough in there to release a King sized Hershey bar, the tiny coil in the machine pushing it out until it drops into the slot below with a thud.

“You w-”

The voice comes out of seemingly nowhere, startling both of them. Instinct alone has Daryl close his fist around the coins, otherwise they would’ve probably scattered all over the concrete.

“Well excuse the fuck out of me, gentlemen.”

Daryl watches Rick jump and then smoothly step right in front of him, shielding him from the man who may have just come around the corner or may have been standing in the shadows watching them all along.

Something about him from his slicked back hair to his sideways grin makes Daryl’s heart speed up just a little and not in a good way. And that voice? He knows that voice, would swear on his mother's ghost he's heard it before. But from where?

“We’re about done,” Rick says casually, like the guy didn’t just scare the shit out of both of them. “You fixing the ice machine?”

Daryl, usually the king of details, finally picks up on the faded blue coveralls the man’s wearing, complete with a little sewn on name patch. They’re a little too short for him, like he hit a growth spurt sometime after buying them, and Daryl can see patches of pale skin above his socks and work boots.

“Oh no,” he says, not even giving the machine a glance. “That piece of shit is good and truly shot to hell.”

He steps forward, crowding them and forcing Rick to back up, knocking into Daryl who stumbles back in turn. Daryl’s eyes fall on Rick’s gun resting in its holster, and something in him wants to grab it and clutch it to his chest like a security blanket. He transfers the change into his other fist instead, squeezing it tight in case he should need to throw a punch. 

“Just a cold drink to get me through the rest of my shift. You know how it is.”

“Sure, sure,” Rick says. “Well, nice meeting you.”

He doesn’t turn away from the man for even a millisecond, instead slowly backing away while maintaining eye contact. It’s the same thing Daryl learned to do if he came across a wolf or coyote out in the woods. 

_"Don't ever ever run," his Uncle Jess had said. "Else they'll think you's fun to chase and then you's dinner."_

When Rick’s backed them up enough that Daryl’s out of the man’s line of sight, he reaches behind his back subtly and signals that Daryl should go. Daryl starts to back away too, his head turning to make sure there’s no one behind him as he moves slowly back toward the illusion of safety offered by his hotel room.

“Hey don’t go so fast now, officer,” the man says, and something about not being able to see him makes the words tingle up Daryl’s arms even more. “You almost forgot your candy bar.”

Rick steps forward instead of back this time, presumably blocking the guy from rounding the corner, effectively keeping Daryl’s retreat out of his view. It's like some fucked up game of chess is being played right in front of him and neither he nor Rick actually know what'll happen if they lose. 

“Thank you,” Rick says, his voice growing fainter and fainter while Daryl moves away from him. "I would've been missing that." 

“Can’t waste a good candy bar,” the man says. “We have a zero tolerance policy for that kind of bullshit around here.”

The words hit Daryl like a punch to the gut, stopping him against the wall outside of another room. He can't tell if the muffled voices he hears now are coming from inside or from the stalemate in the corridor. But the other words echo in his head, warping and undulating and repeating again and again. 

“ _We have a zero tolerance policy for that kind of bullshit around here, Dixon.”_

One deep inhale and the change scatters to the sidewalk. He hears Rick call his name, and then everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's a bit of a cliffhanger (again), and the next update will be timely if it kills me. 
> 
> Also I want to take a moment to promote this amazing tool for fanfic readers that I found out about recentlyish. It's been around for a bit, but it allows you to make a floating box to write reviews in as you read and has ended my days of reading stories while clicking back and forth between two tabs. 
> 
> No more having to leave those "I know I meant to say a lot more but I can't remember what" comments. It'll also easily help you pull out quotes that you wanna gush over. Even if you don't use it for my stories, it's so useful that I want to make sure you all know about it. 
> 
> [Floating Review Box.](https://ravenel.tumblr.com/post/156555172141/i-saw-this-post-by-astropixie-about-how-itd-be)
> 
> Anyway be sure to leave your thoughts/burning questions below. But we all know the legion of murder possums did it. <3


	14. Blood, Nothing, Blood

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much, [Cielia](https://fae-voritensfw.tumblr.com/) for the artwork included in this chapter. Everyone please show some love in the comments. <3

Daryl’s first thought is ‘ _cold_.’

So cold.

“ _We have a zero tolerance policy for that kind of bullshit around here, Dixon.”_

“ _The only way out is through.”_

_Red, red, wet, red, red._

_Cold._

“Daryl.”

“ _We have...”_

“ _The only...”_

_Red._

_Cold._

“Daryl, come back.”

“I’ll grab the food.”

_Tolerance, Through, Red, Cold. Zero, Out, Wet, Cold._

Blue.

“Daryl...”

Fingertips brush across his face and gently tap at his cheek. He focuses on the blue, letting it pull him away from the rest of it, from the dark, dark, dark of it all.

All except the cold. God, he’s shivering. He slowly becomes aware of the quiver in his bottom lip as the rest of it fades back into the recesses of his mind.

He blinks once, twice, and then gasps, bolting up straight in the bath tub, his clothes heavy with what feels like ice water.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“Easy,” Rick says, steadying him with his hands before reaching over to turn off the shower. It takes Daryl a second to finish orienting himself. The lime green linoleum on the bathroom counter is a dead giveaway, and the knowledge that he’s in the motel room just feet from where the man was does not make him feel anything resembling safe.

“Where’s the guy?” Daryl asks frantically.

“I don’t know,” Rick answers, pulling a towel from the rack of clean ones and passing it over. Daryl wraps up in it like a blanket, drying his face. Looking past Rick to the rest of the motel room, he sees what can only be described as a flurry of activity. Two officers float around the room, packing his few things into bags. A woman in a skirt suit stands at the window peering out, a gun strapped to her hip.

“What happened?”

“I think you had another blackout or whatever you wanna call it,” Rick says. “I kept sayin your name, but you weren’t responding. Your eyes were open but they weren’t here. You kept muttering stuff.”

“Stuff?” Daryl asks.

“‘Don’t, please don’t.’ That’s what you said.” Rick sinks to the tile beside him. “Jesus, you scared the shit out of me. Do you remember any of it?”

“I...” Daryl closes his eyes. Even trying to think about the space and time between the vending machines and the bathroom makes pain blossom in his skull. But he tries and tries and tries, screwing up his brow and thinking so hard that he’s sure his nose will start bleeding at any moment.

“Dry clothes,” someone whispers, their voice floating in and out of his ears, barely registering in the interim.

“Zero tolerance policy,” Daryl mumbles. “Zero…bullshit”

“That’s what he said,” Rick says.

“He was there,” Daryl says, digging his thumb into the space between his brows. “Whatever wherever, he was there.”

Rick exhales, swears softly.

“Okay, Daryl. I just want to confirm,” he says, drying his hands on the fronts of his jeans, “that when you say he was there, you mean that night that you showed up at the Greene place? You’re telling me that whatever happened to you prior to that, you’re pretty sure he was present?”

Daryl nods. “Yeah, I’m sayin that.”

“Michonne,” Rick calls, pulling himself up off the tile. He looks down at Daryl and tilts his head toward the dry clothes. “Go ahead and change.”

Daryl has never felt more vulnerable than he does in the moment that the bathroom door shuts, leaving him totally alone.

The entire time he dresses, he can’t bring himself to glance at the tiny ventilation window above the shower. He just knows if he does that he’ll find a pair of dark eyes peering back at him.

* * *

Rick’s still wired on adrenaline when he leaves Daryl in the bathroom. The moments between when he watched him slide the sidewalk and when backup arrived were short, but they stretched on for eons. All he could do in that time was sit next to him with his back against the wall, scanning every direction with one hand firmly on his Colt, the other rubbing Daryl’s arm in an attempt to offer some kind of comfort.

The mystery man, whether he heard the call for backup or wasn’t banking on a gun being present for whatever he had planned, peeked around the corner once, threw him a cheshire grin, and then disappeared to God only knew where.  

Rick’s regretted not chasing after him about five hundred times since, each of those regrets coming in between other regrets of not trying to make an arrest the second he saw him. Even though he knows neither of those things were options at the time. Not alone with Daryl in tow and especially not with him incapacitated.

Still the too short coveralls and the yellowed name tag bearing the name “Axel” in looping red stitches are on constant replay in his mind.

“How is he?” Michonne asks, moving away from the window. She sits in the flimsy desk chair and produces her notebook. “Remember anything?”

“Confirmed what I already figured, that the guy was involved,” Rick says, pulling out his own notebook to confirm the name on his list. Again. Could be a coincidence, but it’s not a very common name, and if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, grins maliciously like a goddamn duck... “His memory’s hazy but he swears that the guy was there that night.”

“I called the front desk while you were in there,” she says. “They don’t have a maintenance man or any other employees for that matter. The owners pretty much do everything themselves. Also said there are only two other guests here besides Daryl, neither of whom match the description.”

Another pang of regret that the bastard isn’t already sitting in the back of his car in handcuffs.

“Espinosa, Chambler,” Rick says, “as soon as you’re done, I want you out there with Williams and Basset. Together. Like I told them, we’re considering this guy armed and dangerous until we find out otherwise. No taking him in without backup.”

“Got it,” Chambler says. “Actually, I think we’re both about done.”

“Yep.” Espinosa throws Daryl’s bag on the bed beside a couple of plastic sacks full of food. “We’re out.”

“Michonne, any thoughts?” he asks, rubbing at his eyes with his fingertips. He’s exhausted and that fucking headache is back with a vengeance.

He figures she might have some sort of advice for them, but she doesn’t speak until they leave. By that time, Daryl’s dressed and rifling through the trash for a plastic bag to put his wet clothes in.

“I can contact Kendall PD, GSP, and agencies in the surrounding counties for you,” she says.

“Fuck,” Rick responds. Because of course he’d forget the most obvious fucking shit in the whole goddamn world. Jesus, if he doesn’t sleep soon… Michonne doesn’t seem bothered at all though, not by his shitty policing or his outburst. He has no idea how the hell she can seem so calm when he feels ready to crawl out of his own skin.

“Chambler, Espinosa, Basset, and Williams. Is that all you have?” she asks quietly.

“Other than dispatch,” he says. “Funny thing is that it’s usually overkill. Kendall handles its own stuff unless one of us happens to be passing through, GSP catches a lot of the speeders flying through. We’ve gotten by with just one per shift before.”

He doesn’t know why he feels the need to defend his department’s numbers. It’s not like she was making a dig at it, not like he makes the county budget himself.

“We’ll focus on the search tonight, but you might want to look into working more closely with Kendall PD, share officers and resources. Other counties too, especially if we start finding evidence that expands the grid a bit.”

Rick glances over at Daryl. He’s leaning against the wall staring at the small pile of things on the bed, clearly trying not to intrude on their conversation. His hair’s still wet and sticking out at odd angles, and he looks like he’s ready to climb under the bed and hide forever.

“How do you do this?” Rick asks, as quietly as he possibly can so that Michonne alone hears him. “There’s so much to do, and it feels like there’s more every second. It’s like pulling a string on a sweater.”

“One step at a time, one day at a time,” she says. “If you wanna know what I really think, I think it’s already going better than you think it is. If I had to hazard a guess, you weren’t meant to see Maintenance Man tonight at all. We’ve got disappearances that date back years and you haven’t gotten wind of what they were doing until Daryl showed up. They’re good at hiding, and this was probably a huge screwup.”

“You don’t think that maybe points to a problem? That they’ve been here years and haven’t even been noticed?”

“I looked at those files again and again trying to find some kind of connection other than a vague tie to a road that is hundreds of miles long,” she says. “I don’t think anyone else would’ve found one either. You have a face to look for now, and you’ve got a witness who they think is dangerous enough to hunt down. You’re already ahead of the game.”

“Thanks,” Rick says. It doesn’t make him feel any better about any of it, but it’s something. She nods once at him and then stands up, smoothing her skirt with her hands.

“I’ll follow you to the station,” she says.

“Yeah, okay.”

* * *

Michonne slips into the interrogation room the second they’re back at the station. Rick hears her firing off phone calls immediately and wouldn’t put it past her to have already made a few during the drive.

“This is Special Agent Andrews of the FBI. Can I speak to your senior officer on duty tonight?” she says, pulling file folders toward her in the process. Rick nods at her and keeps moving inside, flipping lights on as he goes. At this hour, unless someone is working in the station, lights are usually on for dispatch only, with dim security lighting on in the rest of the station and the holding area.

But he’s in no mood for shadows and dark corners tonight, and he suspects Daryl probably isn’t either. He wants the place lit up brighter than a Georgia summer. When he gets to the break room, he turns those lights on too, switching them over from motion-activated to constant. He leaves Daryl there momentarily. It’s a windowless room with only one door, and it feels as safe as anything for the time being.

“If you wanna stash your stuff in the fridge, go ahead. You can leave your bags here too for now,” Rick says.

“Yeah, okay.” Daryl drops his bag on the circular table. “Should I come find you or you want me to wait here?”

“I’ll be back in just a second.”

More walking through the station, turning on any light he hasn’t already including the outdoor floods. He checks all the doors too, locks the backdoor that almost everyone forgets to lock, locks the front door that they typically leave open at all hours, passes Ed Peletier in a holding cell puking his guts out. He checks the side door even though it’s always locked and then he checks the one single window that actually opens, the alleged aim being that it could be used in a pinch as an emergency exit.

When everything’s locked down tight, he checks it all again because his brain is questioning him over and over.

Are you sure? Are you sure? Are you sure you’re sure?

Back in the break room, he finds Daryl sitting at the table, staring an untouched piece of bread in front of him on a brown paper towel.

“I’m back,” Rick says, and Daryl glances up at him and nods before looking back down at the bread.

“Figured I should eat something,” he says, reaching out to press a thumb print into the white spongey middle.

“Are you comfortable in here or do you wanna move rooms?”

A long pause. Daryl pokes at the bread again, this time with his index finger.

“Don’t think I know what that is anymore,” he says. “But this is fine.”

“Can we talk some more about what happened?” Rick asks. And he hates to because he knows it’s a lot like rubbing salt into an open wound, but it needs to be done.

“I don’t remember.”

“I know,” Rick says. “But can we talk about it anyway?”

Daryl nods.

“Go ahead.”

It takes Rick longer than it should to dig his notebook out of his pocket, but it’s like his fingers are even sleepier than the rest of him. When he finally fumbles it open, he clicks his pen.

“I just want you to describe the guy for me,” he says. “Everyone’s working with my description right now, and I wanna make sure there’s nothing we need to add.”

Daryl picks a corner off the slice like he means to actually eat it, but he leaves it on the napkin. He sniffs and itches at his nose with the back of his hand.

“Tall, prolly six-two or six-three. Black hair all slicked back. Dark eyes, prolly brown.”

“Mhm,” Rick says, mostly looking at his own description jotted onto the lines.

“Beard, really stubble I guess. Salt and pepper.” Another piece of the bread ripped apart and left on the table. “Late 40s or early 50s, thin.”

“Skin color?”

“You were there, Rick.”

“Humor me. Please.”

“White guy,” Daryl says. “And he was wearing coveralls like a mechanic or a janitor, light blue but faded, too short for him. White socks. Black work boots.”

“Was there anything else?” Rick asks.

“Name tag, said ‘Axel.”  

It’s everything Rick saw down to the “six foot two” he noted as the probable height. Nothing new or helpful, but at least everyone’s looking for the right guy.

“And the tattoo,” Daryl says. Rick sits up straighter.

“Tattoo?”

“On his upper forearm,” Daryl says. Rick replays the memory again, and he would swear up and down that the guy was in long-sleeves. He even remembers them being as ill-fitting as the ankles, exposing quote a bit of wrist. But the upper forearm?

Daryl squints and rubs at the corners of his eyes.

“No, that’s not… Was wearin sleeves, wasn’t he?”

“Tell me about the tattoo anyway,” Rick says. “What did it look like?”

“Looked like a bunch of snakes all woven together,” he says.

Rick writes that down and takes a deep breath to try and calm the small rush of adrenaline that spiked at the possibility that Daryl might remember something after all.

“Do you know how many snakes?”

“I don’t even know if it’s a real tattoo,” he says. “But no.”

“That’s-”

A small tap on the door frame, and Rick looks over the find Michonne. She’s untucked her shirt, the wrinkled tails hanging loosely around her hips. Her jacket and shoes are gone too, her feet bare other than some thin stockings.

“I’ve called everyone from here to Atlanta,” she says.

“Think he’ll turn up?” Rick asks, already having formed his own doubts. They might catch the guy eventually, but he’s betting he’s already hunkered down somewhere for now.

“Always a chance.” She grabs the back of another chair and slides it out before taking a seat. “What are we talking about?”

“Daryl thinks he remembers a tattoo,” Rick says. “It wouldn’t have been visible tonight, but it’s something. I was just about to radio it out.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” Michonne says.

Rick leans into the radio on his shoulder and hits the button.

“All units be advised that suspect may or may not have a snake tattoo on his upper forearm.”

“Roger,” Chambler says.

“Copy.” That’ll be Williams.

“You gonna eat that?” Michonne asks, her voice as close to playful as anyone in the room is gonna manage for some time.

“Why? You want it?” Daryl uses one finger to spin the paper towel around on the table.

“Sure, we can pop it in the oven over there, make some croutons, have a nice garden salad.” She offers him a weak smile. “For the record, I prefer plain crackers when I’m trying to force myself to eat, but bread’s a lot easier than it seems at first.”

Daryl glances at him, and he shrugs.

“Have you even eaten today?” Rick asks.

“Have you?” Daryl fires back. Touche.

Of course he’d meant to. The giant chocolate bar was probably still somewhere on the dash of his cruiser.

“Holy shit,” Rick says, shooting up out of the chair fast enough to move the table a few inches. Beside him, Daryl groans at the loud screeching sound the legs make sliding against the tile.

He’s out of the break room before Michonne or Daryl can finish asking him what’s going on, fumbling with the key ring clipped to his waist. He drops it once, nearly trips trying to pick it up without stopping, and then promptly drops it again before he’s back upright.

“Fuck,” he mumbles, picking it back up and finding the key for the back door. He lets himself out into the parking lot, scans the area lit by flood lights and the lone security light buzzing up above him. Another fumble with the key ring, a third drop, more swearing.

He finds the chocolate bar right where he left it, tossed up onto the dash. He roots around in his glove box, finds a plastic bag, and uses it to grab the thing without touching it any more than he already has. When it’s in his hand, when he’s sure that he both still has it and that it exists and that it’s not going anywhere, he actually laughs.

For the first time in a week, he feels like he actually has something concrete and usable. He walks it back into the station, finds Michonne standing in the doorway with Daryl a couple feet behind her.

“He touched it,” Rick says, practically vibrating.

He passes the bag to Michonne so he can turn around and re-lock the door.

“He touched it,” he repeats. And he knows that fingerprints aren’t a sure thing, but he can’t help the feeling that this is something, something,  _something_.

Another quiet laugh, and he takes the bag back, already making plans for how he’s gonna get the thing into Ford’s hands as soon as humanly possible.  

* * *

Rick’s chocolate bar sits in the middle of the break room table, feeling a bit like a good luck charm. Or at least he can tell Rick feels that way. Daryl has never been one to hold out hope for much, and he doubts the creepy fuck would be stupid enough to touch something if he knew his prints were in the system.

But the maybe of it all has seemingly lightened the circles under Rick’s eyes one full shade, and he’s not gonna take that away from him by spewing his own pessimism all over the place. He’s put enough pressure on Rick for a lifetime.

“Daryl,” Rick says, the notebook in his hand an indication that he’s not gonna like the next thing that comes out of his mouth at all. “Can we keep talkin?”

Daryl really wishes that he could say no.

“Do what you gotta,” he says. Beside him, Agent Michonne shifts in her seat, turning in her chair and throwing her feet up in the one beside it. She pulls her notebook back to her and opens it up.

“Let’s talk through what happened earlier tonight,” Rick says. “How about you start with us leaving the motel room?”

“Showed you were the vending machines were,” Daryl says. “You bought that candy bar. Asshole showed up, scared the shit out of both of us.”

“Can you be more specific?” Michonne asks. Rick throws a glance at her and then fixes his gaze back on Daryl.

“About which part?” Daryl asks.

“How did the man make himself known?” she asks.

“Heard him before we saw him,” Daryl says. “Said something along the lines of ‘excuse the fuck out of me.’”

“Go on,” Rick says.

“Somethin was off,” Daryl says. “Saw the coveralls were way too small. Thought maybe they shrunk in the wash or the place didn’t replace them when they hired somebody new, but I also thought that it was a load of bullshit. It was like he wanted us to be afraid of him.”

Michonne raises her eyebrows and makes note of something, her pen gently scratching on the paper. In front of him, Rick motions for him to keep going, his hand rotating through the air.

“Rick asked him somethin about him being there to fix the ice machine. Sign said it was out of order. Guy said that it was, I don’t know, ‘shot to hell,’ I think was how he put it.”

“You’re doing great,” Rick says.

He recounts the rest of the exchange, talks about backing away, about Rick getting him out of sight and that he thought he meant for him to go so he did.

Rick nods in confirmation, or maybe he’s just nodding at his version of events lining up with everything he remembers.  

“I was, I don’t know, a quarter of the way back to the room, still within earshot and he’d said something to Rick about the candy bar. And then...”

“Then?” Rick asks.

“He said that…that kind of...” There’s lead flooding into his tongue, and with every word his throat seems to constrict a little more. Deep in his stomach, something gives a sickening churn. “Bullshit.”

“A zero,” Daryl starts again, trying to finish the sentence. “Zero tolerance policy.” At that, he actually heaves. It’s dry and even if he did actually vomit, there’s probably nothing in him but bile. Rick reaches for the trash can anyway, setting it next to him. It smells like coffee grounds.

“I know this is the shittiest thing to ask you right now, Daryl, but try to keep going.” Rick places a warm hand on his back.

“A zero tolerance policy for...” More heaving. “that kind of bullshit around here, Dixon.”

Acid burns the back of his throat, but that’s as far as it gets. He swallows it down, slides out of the chair, and starts sobbing.

The floor below him is concrete, tile, concrete again and his hands are covered in blood, nothing, so much blood. He blinks and blinks, watching it change again and again.

“Please don’t,” he says, and he’s talking to Rick but he’s not. He’s not.

Rick kneels down in the blood beside him, tan uniform pants an island in the middle of the cornflower blue tile.

“Don’t what, Daryl?” he asks.

Warm and sticky and flowing. In front of him, a pair of black work boots. Beside him, a pale white arm and a hand. Female, not moving.

He heaves again, this time vomiting into the blood. Or is it onto the tile? He doesn’t know if this is here or there or there or here. Or both.

“Don’t what?” Rick asks, his voice muffled beneath the sounds of someone crying.

“Fuck you, you crazy son of a bitch.” Merle’s voice, somewhere behind him. Daryl looks up  at knees clad in blood-soaked jeans.

“Fuck you!” Merle yells, voice breaking.

Daryl follows the flow of blood over to the woman and gags at the sight. There’s nothing coming out now despite all the retching, nothing then either, just drool.

“The only way out is through, baby brother,” Merle says. “The only way out is through.”

One deep gasp and Daryl sits up on his knees, tile cool and solid beneath him. Rick’s hand squeezes his shoulder, his head tilted, blue eyes peering into his. Behind him, Michonne stands hunched over, notebook hanging loosely by her side.

“Daryl?” Rick asks.

He can only cough in response. There’s no vomit anywhere, but there’s still acid searing the back of his throat.

Behind Rick, Michonne hops to action, grabbing an upturned mug in the sink drain and filling it with water. He drinks every drop and wipes sweat and tears and drool off his face.

“Rick,” he says weakly, and then he falls into him, the momentum carrying them both onto the floor, Rick landing on his back with Daryl’s face pressed into his chest. He doesn’t sob, probably did all that he possibly could in that department during the flashback or whatever he’d even call it. But he presses his face into the warm uniform shirt and pretends for just a second that he can stay there forever and hide from the whole world.

Somewhere in Rick’s chest, his heart beats, solid and steady and alive. Daryl turns his head just to hear it thumping away. Meanwhile, Rick pats his back with one hand, mumbles something to Michonne about “more water and a wet towel. Top drawer.”

When he finally sits up, she’s there with both. He takes them, thanks her quietly, and wipes the cool across his skin.

Rather than try to coax him back to the table, Michonne slides down onto the floor with them. There are wet spots on the page of her notebook now, the blue ink of the little lines bleeding into the paper like watercolor.

“I know this will be the most difficult thing I’ve asked you to do so far,” Rick says, reaching forward to lay a hand on his shoulder once more, “but it’s better to do it now while it’s fresh. Before you forget.”

Daryl nods. On some level, he understands. On some other level, he’s too tired and fucked up to protest. He pulls the wet cup towel around the back of his neck and looks up at Rick, deciding he’ll try to focus on nothing but blue eyes until he gets through it.

“What do you remember?” Rick asks, scrubbing his free hand over his face then pushing it back through his hair.

No need to put off the inevitable then.

“There was a body,” Daryl says. Next to them, Michonne begins to write furiously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are heating up in King County. What are we thinking?


	15. Prints

Daryl wakes up to the sound of Rick snoring, a low, soft sound reminiscent of distant thunder. It’s the only sound other than Michonne’s quiet breathing and the humming sound of the refrigerator.

All three of them ended up sleeping in the break room at the station after Daryl finished talking about what he’d remembered. And after answering about a million questions about the details from both officer and agent.

The discussion had shifted to where in the heck Daryl might stay since the motel was clearly out. The conversation had gone everywhere from Rick’s sofa to Daryl’s trailer with extra security (“but I don’t know where the hell we’ll find the manpower for that”) to an FBI safe house in the area Michonne thought she might could get access to. 

By the end of the discussion, they hadn’t quite solved anything, and they were all too tired to even consider getting behind a wheel anyway. So Rick had pulled together pillows and scratchy blankets, and they’d all found the most comfortable spots they could, Rick and Daryl sprawling out on the tile and Michonne opting to sleep in a chair, bent over the table.

The clock on the microwave tells Daryl he only slept about two hours. The alleged time is unbelievably wrong, but based on when they all laid down, he’d guess it’s about 4 a.m. At first, he thinks it’s the slight ache in his hip from sleeping on the floor that woke him, but then he hears quiet voices coming from somewhere else.

He knows it’s probably the officers who spent all night hunting for “Axel.” But that part of his brain that can still vividly see the woman laid out on the concrete has his heart speeding up.

What if he found me? What if he broke in and he isn’t alone and they’re all coming? What if he comes in here and he hurts Rick instead of me?

A small wave of nausea at that thought. He tries to stay as quiet as possible, barely even breathing. They’d left all the lights on which made everything seem so safe at the time, but now the thought that he doesn’t have shadows to keep him hidden feels stupid. Why had they done that?

The voices get a little closer to the break room.

“Fuck, I want to sleep for a week but I also want, like, 800 donuts.”

He barely knows the person its attached to, but the comfort that comes with recognizing it washes over him almost instantly. It’s the dark haired officer, the one he saw on his first day in the station, the one who folded his underwear. Chambler?

Doesn’t matter. She’s not there to murder him, probably, and that’s good enough.

“Mi cielo, I hate you for talking about food ri—oh shit.” The last two words come out as a whisper, and Daryl turns his face to the door. Sure enough, both of the women from the hotel room are standing in the doorway. He makes eye contact with Espinosa.

“Good morning, ladies," Rick mumbles. 

The voices must have woken him as well, and Michonne too for that matter. Daryl looks over to find Rick sitting in the middle of his makeshift bed, rubbing his eyes. Both officers enter the room at that point, Chambler heading straight for the coffee maker.

“Guessing we would’ve already heard something if you had good news,” Michonne says, the last few syllables lengthening exponentially as she talks through a yawn.

“Nada,” Chambler says. “Leon and Sasha are heading in too. We all kinda talked it over, and Rosita and I are gonna stay here, cat nap at our desks, let dispatch come poke us with a stick if there’s anything going on. Those two are gonna go home and actually get a few hours, and then we’ll trade out at like 9ish.”

“Thank you,” Rick says. “Really appreciate you all taking the initiative to figure that out. Remind me to give you a raise. Also remind me to ask the county commissioners to approve raises.”

“Have you all been here all night?” Espinosa asks. Rosita, apparently.

“Yeah, Daryl remembered some things, and we’re trying to figure out-” Rick cuts himself off with a huge yawn, his back bowing in the process. He ditched his uniform top on the back of one of the chairs hours ago, and the motion pulls his white tee shirt taut across his chest. Daryl looks back up at the other officers, deciding to sit up as well.

“Can’t figure out what to do with me." Daryl shrugs. 

“I’ve got a couch,” Chambler says, at the same exact time that Rosita says she has “a spare room.”

Rick opens his mouth like he wants to argue, but can’t seem to come up with anything to actually say.

“There’s a thought,” Michonne says.

“S’alright.” Daryl shakes his head. It’s bad enough he’s putting Rick at risk. He’s already seen what this guy’s capable of doing to one person, and he’s not about to give him more targets.

“Maybe until you check on that safe house." Rick nods at Michonne. 

“I was just thinking if we kept him moving, if they never knew where he might be one day to the next,” Michonne says. “Your place, any officer with room, the safe house—I have to talk to Andrea, but he can probably come back to the city with me and stay with us off and on.”

“Makes sense to me,” Chambler says, pouring herself a cup of coffee. It's not even quite done brewing yet, drops of it falling onto the hot plate and hissing steam. Rosita is right behind her too, filling a mug to the brim and sipping it black.

“Yeah, I guess.” Rick doesn’t look thrilled with the idea. Then again, he also doesn’t look alive in general. His eyes are practically red, the underneaths a deep purple. He could hate the idea as much as Daryl does, or he could just be too exhausted to express any real emotion.

Doesn’t matter though, because it’s not happening.  

“No.” Daryl shakes his head.

“Why not?” Michonne asks.

“Fucker’s lookin for me. Ain’t gonna be responsible for what he does to anybody else if he actually finds me.”

No one replies for a moment. Rick blinks slowly next to him, his eyes bleary. Michonne seems to be genuinely considering his objection. Rosita seems to be two seconds from falling asleep in her cup of coffee.

Daryl has to admit he’s a little surprised that Chambler’s the one who speaks first.

“Um, no offense dude, but that’s sort of our job.”

Rosita nods and drinks at the same time.

“She’s right. If that pendejo comes for you, better it happens when one of us is around.” Another sip. “Protect and serve, right? What I signed up for.”

“You haven’t seen what he can do,” Daryl says, and for a split second, he swears the tile turns red again.

“We were both at the farm,” Rosita says. “I get it. You’ve been through some shit and you don’t want to put anyone else through it, but he could just as easily hurt me while I’m out looking for him.”

“And we don’t know what else this guy’s up to,” Chambler adds. “You’re the best chance we’ve got of stopping this bullshit. I’d rather go out protecting the dude who can bring this asshole down than, you know, the heart attack I’m probably gonna have at 40 because burgers are life.”

All Daryl can do is keep shaking his head.

“Y’all just don’t get it,” he says. “There’s enough damn blood on my hands already.”

Rosita looks like she’s ready to curse him out in two languages, maybe even three, but Michonne beats her to the punch.

“Daryl,” she says, calm as a windless sea, a stark contrast to the angry rise and fall of his own chest and the semi-violent huffs of air flowing out of his nostrils. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Just did, but whatever.”

“Who killed the woman in your memory?”

“Fuck, we’ve been over this shit like 50 times.”

“Who?”

“Probably that guy. I don’t know.”

“Did you know her?” she asks.

A low growl. “Know I didn’t. Ain’t that in your precious goddamn notebook?”

“Then why do you think her death has anything to do with you?” She’s still calm, so damn calm, with her hands folded in her lap atop her wrinkled skirt.

“Maybe it didn’t, but if he showed up and hurt one of them, it’d be on me.”

“If I pulled my gun on Rick right now and shot him, whose fault with that be?” she asks. Rick’s eyebrows go up, and he turns his gaze to her.

“Do what now?” Rick asks.

“Look, I get the damn point you’re trying to make, alright?” Daryl’s fuming now.

“Okay,” Rick says softly, putting both hands up. The room goes quiet save the sound of Chambler slurping sips of coffee. Rick takes a deep breath. 

“What do you want to do, Daryl?” he asks. “We talked about plans for you for hours, we’re talking more now, and we can probably keep talking all day, but we haven’t asked you what you'd like.”

Leave the country? Maybe the planet. Disappear and know that no one will get hurt because some murdering fuck is following me around?

Daryl sighs, deflates.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Rick says, nodding at him. “That’s okay. Jesus, what time is it anyway?”

Chambler rolls her wrist over a few times, curses, and then taps her watch twice.

“A little after 4:15.”

“Okay,” Rick says, still nodding. He looks at Daryl, tilting his head slightly to the right. “So we’re gonna go back to sleep for a bit. You can spend the day here in the station. Maybe you’ll make a decision, maybe we’ll come up with something else. If not, we’ll go grab an air mattress and set you up somewhere here until we figure out something better. Know you don’t exactly want to stay in a police station indefinitely, but-”

“Okay,” Daryl says. He didn’t want to do that when Rick brought him here in the first place. Still doesn’t. But he has to think that this guy wouldn’t be dumb enough to come after him in an actual police station. Or at least, it’s an easy enough thing to convince himself of for the time being.

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Discussion tabled for now, Chambler and Espinosa take their coffees and head to their desks to slump over paperwork and catch a few winks. In the break room, Rick, Daryl and Michonne all settle back down.

* * *

Rick has no idea how he manages to do it, but he sleeps until 11 a.m. His best guess is that pure exhaustion finally won out. He just wishes he could enjoy the fact that he actually got a little rest instead of mildly panicking at just how late in the day it is the second he wakes up.

Daryl’s still safe though and sleeping at that, so that’s one less thing to worry about. Michonne seems to have already left, or she’s somewhere else already working. He wonders how many overnights she’s pulled in her career.

“Oh good, you’re up.” Williams barely has her eyes open.

“Yeah,” Rick says.

“Someone here to see you.”

Great. He looks down at himself, all wrinkled tee and uniform pants. His shirt’s still in decent shape slung over the back of the chair, so he grabs it and pulls it back on, doing up the buttons and trying to decide if it’s even worth it to tuck it in. He decides it is does up the buttons, grabbing his duty belt out of the seat and cinching it around his hips.

“About like putting a grizzly bear in a dress at this point, huh?” he asks, trying to smooth out a big wrinkle on his thigh. It doesn’t budge.

“You look...” Williams just shrugs after that.

“Yeah thanks,” Rick says. “Hey, you awake enough for a drive?”

He glances over at the table for the chocolate bar, but it’s gone. Instead there’s a piece of paper from Michonne’s notebook.

“I’ll need more coffee,” she says. “A lot more.”

“Hold that thought.” He unfolds the note.

_Had to go back to the city anyway. Text me the details when you wake up and I’ll drop it off. -M_

“Yeah never mind. Who’s here?”

Williams jerks her head toward the door and Rick follows.

“Kendall chief.” Williams leads him back out to the bullpen and points at his desk. Sure enough, there’s a man lounging in the chair holding Rick’s name plate. He’s wearing a solid black uniform free of wrinkles. He even has a hat perched on his knee.

Rick met him a long time ago at a community meet and greet and hated him the second he opened his mouth, but he hates him a little more now for daring to look so dignified when the whole world is falling apart.

“Sheriff Grimes,” he says, looking up from the name plate. He throws Rick a politician’s smile.

“Chief Blake.” Rick slides down into his seat. He starts to make an excuse about the state of his uniform but quickly decides he doesn’t owe him any kind of explanation. “What can I do you for?”

“Apparently someone from the FBI reached out on your behalf last night.”

“She did. Mich- Agent Andrews offered to make a few calls to other LE in the area as we were actively pursuing a suspect.”

“Still at large, I’m assuming?” Blake asks, leaning back in the chair and putting his feet up on the corner of Rick’s desk. Rick feels his jaw clench.

“He is.”

“And does this suspect have anything to do with the Dixon case?”

Rick runs his fingers back through his hair. He wants to tell him to fuck off, but Michonne wasn’t wrong about their resources.

“Possibly.” He pulls out his notebook, flipping through it and deciding what of it actually needs to be shared for the time being. “I’m assuming you want some more details.”

“Well, all I have so far is a gentleman who is  _possibly_  connected and a newspaper article that leaves a lot to the imagination, so a little more information would be appreciated if my men are gonna be out there helping out.”

He could still tell him to fuck off. He could.

“At approximately 4 a.m. last Wednesday, I was called to the Greene residence where we found Daryl Dixon covered in blood. Forensics shows multiple victims. Status unknown though we have reason to believe that at least one of those victims is dead. Yesterday evening, we encountered a man Dixon believes he recognizes.”

“Believes?” Blake asks. “You’ve got my men running around looking for someone based on what? A hunch?”

Rick’s head falls to the side almost immediately. He tilts it until his neck pops and inhales through his nose.

“I found Mr. Dixon’s testimony reliable enough to pursue a possible mass murder suspect,” Rick says. “But if that’s not enough for you, chief, I was also present for the encounter and witnessed the man wearing clothing that probably belonged to one of our victims.”

Blake actually starts laughing at that, the same kind of laugh you hear at country clubs and secret societies. Probably. 

"I'm sorry, you just used 'Dixon' and 'reliable' in the same sentence. Do you know how many times we've had those boys in lockup?" Blake asks. "Why exactly is he not in custody." 

"I don't recall telling you where Mr. Dixon is or is not," Rick says, talking again when he sees Blake start to open his mouth. "For safety reasons, I also won't." 

Silence. Blake narrows his eyes. Rick imagines his stapler arcing over the desk and hitting him square in the eye. Finally, Blake’s feet slide off of his desk onto the floor.

“Well, I know your resources are pretty, let’s say meagre,” Blake says. The politician’s smile slides back into place, and Rick sincerely hopes that a suspect kicks him in the teeth someday soon. “Kendall PD is of course happy to help any way we can.”

“We appreciate that,” Rick says, standing up. He manages to reach across the desk and shake Blake’s hand so hard that the man physically winces.

“Anyway, here.” Blake hands him a business card. “You can reach me anytime at my cell number. I also wrote my dry cleaner’s number on the back. They can get out just about anything, but their uniform pressing service really is top notch.”

A flick of his eyes up and down Rick’s body and he turns away, putting his hat back on.

“Bye, Sheriff,” he says, already turning the handle that leads out into the lobby.

Deciding that his professional courtesy has been exhausted enough, Rick pretends he didn’t hear him. Besides, texting Abe’s info to Michonne is far, far more important.

* * *

Daryl wakes up stiff and sore, with the distinct sensation that every bone in his back is grinding together when he tries to move. He remembers the days when he could sleep all night belted onto a tree branch and feel barely anything, but those days are long gone, replaced by days where one night on a tile floor can make him feel like his body is made of pain.

He grunts and sits up. Grabbing the edge of the table for support, he manages to pull himself up just enough to slide into a chair, slumping over the edge and slowly stretching out his back. He digs out his cell phone next, surprised to see that it’s not mid-morning at all but is a little after two in the afternoon. He’s even more surprised at the small grumble his stomach gives.

He’s still not hungry, but his body apparently hasn’t gotten the memo.

Another stretch, and he finally stands up, leaning over to pick up the pile of blankets on the floor and stuff them into the seat of the chair he just vacated.

Out in the station, he finds the bullpen empty except for some guy slumped over a desk, drooling onto a manila file folder. He nudges his ankle with his boot.

“Put the catfish down, Dinah!” The guy bolts upright, blinking at him for several seconds before he seems to actually, truly wake up. “Yes?”

“You seen Rick?” Daryl asks.

“Showers.” His head falls back onto the desk almost immediately.

It takes Daryl a second to remember the lay of the land beyond the break room and the bullpen, but if there’s one thing governments are good at even when it comes to small town police stations, it’s labeling shit. A little black plastic plaque on the door reads “locker room/shower” with the same underneath in braille. Daryl pushes inside and follows the sound of running water.

“Rick...” It doesn’t occur to Daryl that Rick being in the shower means he’s  _in the shower_  until he’s actually standing there, watching the water cascade over Rick’s hair and face. Small rivulets run between his pecs and down his biceps, dripping off his elbows. A small tile wall hides him from the waist down, but only so long as Daryl doesn’t step any closer.

“Shit.” Daryl turns around and faces the wall.

“Daryl. You’re awake.”

Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.

He glances back, just for a second, and then looks at the wall once more.

“Yeah.”

“You can turn around, not like you can see anything from there anyway,” Rick says. “Can you?”

Daryl shakes his head and turns around. A few steps farther away from Rick’s stall there’s a wooden bench. He retreats there and sits down, which effectively gives the wall a lot more coverage. All he can see now is water falling from Rick’s short curls onto his shoulders. A few drops pool in the hollow spaces behind his collarbones.

He licks his lips and realizes that he might not be hungry, but he’s definitely thirsty. He decides he should go back to the break room and get a drink and wait for Rick there. He even starts to stand up.

“You can grab some clothes and hop in one of the other stalls if you want,” Rick says.

He starts to say no, his lips opening, but he can’t get the words out. A few seconds and a couple mugs of water later, he’s back in the shower room piling clean clothes onto the wooden bench. Rick nods to the shelf on the wall holding a few towels, clearly all rejects from people’s homes. Daryl picks up a faded blue number and slings it over the tile wall of the shower farthest away. He double checks that he still can’t see Rick and that Rick won’t be able to see him.

Like it matters, like Rick hasn’t already stripped him naked more than once in the past week.

The shower spray comes out cold at first, enough to make Daryl hiss and swear quietly, something he does again a few seconds later when ice cold turns almost instantly to boiling hot.

“What the fucking fuck?”

“Water temp’s touchy,” Rick says.

“Yeah, no shit.” Daryl taps the knob with this finger, turning it in increments so small that he can barely tell it’s moving. Finally, the temperature becomes something bearable, just hot enough to turn his skin pink and help loosen up some of the stiffness in his back.

He has to admit it feels good, really really good.

“Any luck on that creepy piece of shit?” he asks, voice raised a bit to carry over the twin sprays.

“Not yet,” Rick says. “Michonne took the candy bar to Atlanta. I think fingerprints are pretty quick to pull and run, so maybe we’ll get lucky on an ID today.”

“Yeah maybe.”

He turns his head under the spray, angling it so that the water hits the back of his neck on the right side and then the left. The air around him warms with the steam and he leans forward slowly, feeling the stream of water travel down his spine. It feels amazing.

Until it doesn’t.

It starts with a mild bit of dizziness and spots swimming across his eyes. He reacts by standing back up tall, which only seems to make it worse. And then he can just sense it, this feeling that if he doesn’t sit down immediately, he’s going to pass out right there under the water.

He stumbles toward the towel and manages to grab it and pull it around him.

Hold it together, hold it together, hold it together.

Around the edge of the stall, he stays upright through sheer will alone. And he nearly makes it to the bench, but his wet feet find zero purchase on the smooth concrete floor, and he’s down in a second. He doesn’t quite lose consciousness, and he even thinks that maybe it was for the best since he’s lying down now which feels a lot better. He slowly blinks up at the ceiling, the lights going in and out of focus. For a second, it’s like the spray of the showers becomes a roar, filling up his ears and closing them off from the world.

More blinking. Rick standing over him with a towel clutched around his waist.

“Daryl.” It sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “Daryl.”

He looks down at his own body just to make sure the towel survived the fall. Somehow it did, draped across his waist like a shroud.

“Daryl.” Less water now. Rick’s voice becomes a little clearer. Daryl closes his eyelids tight and slowly opens them back up.

“Daryl,” Rick says, and this time it’s crystal. Daryl slowly turns his head to look up at him. Rick immediately offers his hand and Daryl shakes his head.

“Just gonna stay down here for a minute." 

“What happened? Did you…?”

“Just got really dizzy. M’fine.” There’s shower water pooling under his shoulders, turning cold immediately against the cement. “Can I get another towel?”

Rick gets him one, and he props it under his head like a pillow, catching the drips from his hair.

“Daryl, have you eaten today?” he asks. “Hell, did you even actually eat yesterday?”

Daryl doesn’t even answer, looking away from him, back toward the still-running shower he vacated minutes earlier.

“Okay, stay here,” Rick says. “Don’t try to get up.”

“Not a problem.”

Rick turns off both showers and walks over to a bench on the opposite side of the shower room, where a fresh set of clothes lay folded. He slides sweatpants up under the towel before letting it drop, and then he pulls on a matching top. It’s identical to the one Daryl woke up in the previous week, maybe even the very same.

Rick leaves after that, returning quickly with a piece of bread and a glass of water. He sets both on the floor and slides down next to Daryl, grunting softly.  

“Alright Daryl, sit up real slow.” 

Daryl does, wincing at the fact that the pain in his back has returned already. Rick places a warm hand against his bare skin, steadying him. And it’s not as bad as he thought it might be. He feels alright enough.

“Eat that and then we’ll get you dressed and grab a real lunch.”

He doesn’t try to argue that he’s not hungry. He’s still not, not even the slightest bit, but clearly he’s got to force something down his throat. He tears off the corner of the bread and shoves it in his mouth, glad that it dissolves pretty quickly. It seems Michonne was right.

When the whole slice is gone, Rick gets his clothes and brings them over.

“You need help?” he asks, already trying to help him into his shirt, but Daryl bats his hands away.

“Can you turn around or somethin?”

Rick looks the opposite way, and Daryl dresses as quickly as he can, fighting a couple more bouts of wooziness in the process.

“Let’s go..”

Rick picks up his gun belt and nothing else, leaving both of their dirty clothes where they lie. 

On the way out of the station, they pass Rosita in front of the holding area. She nods at them both.   
  
"Come on in here and let me see what you've got under that uniform, sweet tits. Always wanted to go south of the border," Ed says, a remarkable feat considering he's bent over the metal toilet in his cell. 

"No me están pagando bastante para hacer esta pendejadas," Espinosa mumbles. 

 

He seems like he wants to respond to that too, probably with something equally vile, but he starts puking again the second he opens his mouth. Rosita laughs quietly before disappearing down the hallway. 

* * *

 

 

Rick feels a little ridiculous, sitting there in the middle of Big Daddy’s Burgers with his gun belt cinched tight over sweatpants, even tighter than usual since a lack of a belt means he can't properly secure the thing. It’s not the most flattering of looks either, forcing the clothes too tight in some places so that they seem to bulge in others. There was a time he’d have left the Colt in the glove box for something like this, but like hell was he taking Daryl anywhere without it there right at the tip of his fingers.

Daryl eats without much argument, slowly putting away a small plate of chili cheese fries and a milkshake. Rick doesn’t want his own food any more than Daryl seems to want his, but he can't forego it either, not if he wants to keep him safe and solve this thing.

His phone rings halfway through a second round of milkshakes. Reluctantly ordered, but it seemed like a good idea to load up on calories while they could. They were on a roll after all. 

His caller ID tells him it’s Michonne. He slides the green answer button into place.

“Hey,” he says.  

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” she says. “Well, actually I have a lot of news, some of it good, some of it bad.”

“Prints?” Rick asks. Across from him, Daryl looks up over the top of his shake.

“Yes,” she says. “One really good one and a couple partials. The rest were yours.”

“Any matches?” he asks, and damn he’s never been much for praying but please.

“Sort of. No ID, but they match some taken off a murder weapon in Virginia a few years ago. Some kind of souped up baseball bat.”

“And the victim?” Rick asks.

“Victims,” she said. “A Dr. Emmett Carlson and a Jane Doe. I talked to the ME and she says he had a reputation for treating prostitutes after hours.”

“Trading services for services?” Rick asks.

“Some people think so. His brother swears it was more like volunteer work, that he knew they wouldn’t go anywhere else. Apparently some woman he’d been with in college ended up in sex work, so he had a soft spot.”

“Hmm.”

“Anyway, they were both found in a warehouse on the outskirts of Alexandria about five years ago,” Michonne says. “There was a medical kit there as well and no sign that there’d been any intercourse, so maybe brother Harlan’s right.”

Rick squints down at his half-finished shake.

“So he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?” he asks. “Pretty standard for serial killers to go after sex workers, isn’t it? I mean, she hasn’t even been ID’d.”

“Seems that way, but...” Michonne says.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “With everything we’ve got going on down here, seems like something bigger than a serial killer getting his rocks off.”

“Exactly,” she says. “On the bright side, I took this to my superior and she approved that safe house almost immediately. This crossing state lines also means it’s technically the bureau's jurisdiction now.”

“What exactly does that mean?” Rick asks.

“Well, she’s letting me take lead, so I’ll be picking my own team to bring back down there. We’ll be working together. I’m not some hyped up power hungry TV agent who will expect you to bow to my will. All this means for you is better resources, more of them, and more chance that we get this guy put away as soon as possible.”

“That’s all I want,” Rick says. “And for the record, I never thought you were any of those things.”

“How’s Daryl?”

“He’s good. I think we both finally got some sleep for once.” He doesn’t mention the shower incident. It’s not relevant, and he has a feeling Daryl would physically reach over the table and stab him if he did anyway. 

“My very first murder case, I was up for three days straight. Eventually your body says enough,” she says. 

“Yeah, so what’s the plan, boss?” Rick asks.

“I’m going to stay in Atlanta for the rest of the day and build my team. Then we’ll all be your way in the morning. With any luck, we’ll have him in custody with a full confession by the weekend.”

“You think that’s likely?” he asks.

“Not at all, but I like to stay optimistic.”

“Good,” he says. “Someone on the team should.”

They say their good-byes after that, and Rick goes back to his milkshake and his mission to keep Daryl safe for another day.

They sleep on the break room floor again that night, this time on a king sized air mattress with only a few inches between them.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I managed to have Rick and Daryl shower together and share a bed in the same chapter without it getting smutty. Who even am I? 
> 
> Anyway what flavors of milkshake do you headcanon as the guys' faves? Their options were chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry. 
> 
> xoxo


	16. The Calvary

In the morning, Michonne brings the calvary. Or it seems like that anyway, the small sheriff’s department bursting at the seams with people in slacks and button-downs. Rick watches them set up a large white tent in the parking lot while he chokes down a donut. 

Daryl’s still asleep, and Rick tries not to think too hard about how he’d woken up with his head cradled on his arm. Or how he’d thought very seriously about going back to sleep until his phone started ringing—Michonne asking to be let in. Step one in this new collaboration, it seemed, would be getting her a key.

“Rick,” she says, peeking around the corner. Then she jerks her head back behind her. He pulls himself away from the window and follows.

They’re apparently using the break room as a briefing room now. It makes sense seeing as it’s the biggest besides the bullpen, which has to remain some kind of functional for everyday use and everyday crime.

Daryl’s been cleared out. Rick looks down at the floor where there’d been an air mattress a short while ago.

“He’s in the interrogation room,” Michonne says, like she can see Rick’s mind forming the question. “I gave him a donut and very strict instructions.”

Rick nods.

“Okay, introductions,” she says, pointing at each member of the team. “Ezekiel King, excellent tactical leader but also one of our leading experts on serial killers. Aaron Raleigh, possibly the best profiler in the entire FBI. Eric Raleigh, could be a professional artist, but he chose to sketch criminals instead. Paul Rovia, smart as a whip and the kind of guy you want in your corner if there’s ever a fight. This is my core team.”

She introduces the other half-dozen agents in the room as well, many glancing up from folders they’re reviewing. Rick recognizes some things—missing persons reports, a photocopied newspaper article about a grizzly double-murder in Virginia. Everyone is catching up rapidly, and Rick feels a few ounces of weight lift from his shoulders. 

There are people now, people who know what they’re doing, and his priority can be… He takes a deep breath.

“I’m glad to have you all here,” he says. “I’m not too proud to admit I could really use the help.”

“I want to be clear that you not only answer to me, but to Rick as well,” Michonne says. “If he asks you to do something, I expect it done. This is his community and these are his people.”

A few nods and murmurs and she goes on.

“Plan of attack for today. Lopez and Baqri, I want you to go back to the farm. Fresh eyes are always a good thing.”

Two of the support agents nod.

“Miller and Chadha, I want you canvassing,” she says and there’s a quiet groan. “I know, I know. But start with homes near the farm and circle out.”

Rick stands there, barely awake and already in awe. As much as he liked to think he would’ve done all this if he’d only had the resources, he’s not entirely sure. She keeps going.

“Nguyen, Daniels, I want you to map out the last known locations of all those missing persons. Then I want you to visit them and see if anything stands out.”

That’s almost everyone on the support staff, only one odd man out remaining. 

“White, get us a statement drafted for the press. Keep it vague. And hold onto it until we’ve got a sketch from Raleigh. Please include the fact that Dixon is not a suspect at this time.”

And Rick could hug her for that last part, he really could. Instead he stands there, nodding like a dashboard bobblehead.

“Everyone else, with me. Rick, anything to add?” she asks. He looks up and shakes his head.

“Alright then, let’s go people,” she says. “Keep an eye out for our suspect while you’re out there.”

The whole room breaks apart at that, several agents heading down the hallway for the parking lot, some already shrugging on those easily recognizable navy blue jackets with FBI printed in large letters across the back.

Rick follows her and her core team, ignoring the part of him that wants to go into the interrogation room—just to check, just to make sure. She stops and turns, waving the group on ahead of her.

“I won’t be telling them anything you don’t already know for the next half hour or so,” she says. “If you could go talk to Daryl, see if he’d be willing to work with Eric, that would probably be the best use of your time right now.”

“I can do that,” Rick says, already glancing in that direction.

“Make sure he ate that donut too,” she says, smiling lightly. “It was an order.”

Rick nods and takes off.

* * *

Like bread, donuts are a lot easier to eat once you actually do it. Bit by bit, they dissolve away into sugar and dough. Daryl eats the whole thing as instructed, taking sips of water in between to help everything go down.

He wonders if Rick told her about the shower incident or not.

He wonders if he moved from the crook of Rick’s arm before Rick woke up this morning. And why he moved there in the first place. Rick’s still… Still what? Gorgeous, amazing, hot as hell, too good for a place like King County?

But he hasn’t felt like that since high school. Right?

Right.

The door to the interrogation room opens, and Rick slides in, wearing a fresh pair of black jeans and a pale denim button-down, his gun belt around his waist, his badge clipped between two pouches. He plops down in the chair with a mug of coffee and takes a sip.

“I see you took your orders seriously,” Rick says, looking down at the napkin in front of Daryl. There’s nothing left but a couple loose bits of dry glaze and a little ring of grease.

“Wasn’t so bad.” Daryl shrugs. “FBI’s here now, huh?”

“Yeah, seems like a great team. Hopefully that means this all ends sooner rather than later.”

“Yeah.”

“And since you brought it up, they have a sketch artist with them,” Rick says. Daryl feels his fingers twitch, but he doesn’t react otherwise. “I know you’ve answered a million questions already, but if you could answer a few more.”

“It’s fine,” Daryl says. “I get it. Besides I want him gone.”

“Good, I’ll pass that along.”

Quiet. Daryl stares at Rick across the table. He looks less tired; they probably both do. There’s one good thing in all this shit, at least. They're both finally sleeping.

“Daryl,” Rick starts, scrubbing a hand over his face. “How are you holding up today?”

“I-”

But he never gets the chance to answer. Because Espinosa throws the door open, panting, several hairs loose from her usually tight ponytail.

“Mierda,  _fuck_. Rick, we’ve got a huge fucking problem,” she says. Rick jumps up.

“I don’t think I have to tell you not to leave the station,” he says, turning back to look at Daryl with an intensity that nearly burns.

“Yeah, not a goddamn chance.”

Rick nods, reassured. And then he’s gone.

* * *

The transport van is in pieces, scattered across a blacktop road, three firetrucks circling it like flashing red sharks. Everything smells like smoke and burning rubber and—Jesus, Rick doesn’t want to think about why—barbecue.

Rick watches a volunteer firefighter throw up in the bushes, then retch when there's nothing left. The bodies inside don’t even look like people anymore. The driver is a mess of vaguely human-shaped char. And Ed Peletier is a jigsaw puzzle made of nightmares.

“When was he released?” Rick asks.

“About an hour ago. They came to transfer him to county," Espinosa says. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy." 

Rick circles around the wreckage, avoiding bits of metal and melted rubber. The passenger side of the van is gone, nothing but a giant hole remaining. And he’s got Michonne on the phone before he even makes the conscious decision to call her.

“I think I need you out here,” he says, putting up his hand to stop the tow truck from coming any closer. “And I don’t suppose anyone on your team knows anything about explosives.”

“Explosives? Rick, is there an active-”

“Not anymore,” he cuts in.

“Okay, we’ll be right there.”

“Cordon this shit off and reroute traffic,” Rick says, turning to Espinosa. She gives him a look, cocking one eyebrow at him. Fair enough. He adds a, “Please.”

Michonne’s there minutes later, a small red light on her car flashing away. She steps out, King following her with a camera around his neck. 

“Who was in there?” she asks, stopping beside him. King’s already circling the van, just as Rick had, sizing up the situation, taking it all in. 

“You know, Deanna, my predecessor, told me once that a group of strange coincidences is called a trail,” Rick says, watching King take a few photos. "This seems like one too many." 

He motions toward the destroyed transport. 

“Ed Peletier was in there,” he says.

Michonne doesn’t say anything, the wheels in her brain turning.

“On his way to county lockup,” Rick says. “Broke his probation the other day, didn’t think anything of it.”

“Rick, how close are we?” she asks.

He turns to look at her, cocking his head a bit. 

“Highway 166, Rick, how close?” she asks. 

Ah, because yeah, he’d thought of that too. He wonders if there's some obscure German word for a bunch of shit that's clearly connected even if you can't see all the lines. Because all he's got in English is  _what the fuck_? 

“I have not seen a thing like this since the desert,” King says and Rick can’t place his accent. It’s something like old Hollywood Shakespeare films meets Downton Abbey. “I do not like to guess, but-”

“Guess,” Michonne says.

“Well, it looks a great deal like an RPG to me. A tech could confirm.”

An RPG—How in the actual full-on hell?

“Call Atlanta and see if we can get an explosives expert down here. And call everyone back from their assignments. I want that field torn apart,” she says, pointing to the open pasture running beside the asphalt. “Footprints, fibers, a hair. If there’s anything, we find it now.”

He nods and jogs back to the car, sliding in and grabbing for the walkie like it’s the winning pass in the Superbowl. Except no one's winning anything in this game. 

“How far?” Michonne repeats.

Rick raises one finger and points down the road.

“Not very.”

Next to him, she swears under her breath.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come bug me on [Tumblr](www.bisexualstarbucky.tumblr.com/). (Fair warning, I got sucked into the Stucky shipdom and that's pretty much all I have to talk about right now. But heyyy if you ship that, I got stucky stories now go read 'em.)
> 
> Anyway, I'm doing a random hodgepodge of writing stuff for CampNano, but this is part of it, so hopefully some very frequent updates for you all and maybe even a completed work? (Also hopefully working on Telephone if you read that.)
> 
> Anyway, anyone got any clues for Ricky Dicky Doo Dah this chap? Anyone got anything to say to the boys in general? Anyone got any plum jam?


	17. Let's Go Home

The station, packed to the brim with FBI when Daryl woke that morning, seems eerily empty with almost everyone gone. He’s not alone, of course. Williams is there, sitting on the other side of the interrogation table looking down at her phone.

“So,” she says, clicking her tongue a few times. She sets the phone down on the table. Daryl ignores the message notification from someone named Bob. Or tries to, though really all that’s there is a bunch of red hearts and, for some reason, a leaf.

“So.” Daryl glances up at her.

“There’s a box of mac-n-cheese in the break room pantry that’s probably been there since 1995. You wanna take a risk?”

“Not really hungry,” Daryl says. Hey, he ate his donut, didn’t he? And that was only—he looks at the plain circular clock hanging high on the wall—a few hours ago.

“Where’s your sense of adventure, Dixon?”

“Think I’ve had enough adventure this week.” He shrugs. Enough adventure for a lifetime really. If he never does anything else that exciting for the rest of his life, that'd be okay. 

“Well, there’s nothing more boring than a ham sandwich,” she says. “I’m gonna make you one of those. Don’t move.”

He starts to protest, but the second his lips part, she gives him a look that would stop a deer cold. He’s eating a sandwich whether he likes it or not, it seems. It’s not up for negotiation.

And it takes him a half hour once she comes back, but he does it, sliding the paper plate away from him.

“Thank you,” Williams says, tossing it in the trash behind her. “Sheriff’s orders, you know.”

She picks up her phone and rapid-fires something off before sliding it back into a pocket in her uniform.

“So,” she says again, digging in her pocket and pulling something out.

“So.”

The sound of shuffling cards,  _thk, thk, thk, whoosh_.

“How do you feel about poker?” she asks. But she’s already dealing.

Daryl sits up and takes the cards.

By the time Rick comes back, Daryl’s won most of the candy from Sasha’s private stash. And he’s almost smiled. Twice.

“Your boy here is a cheat,” she says.

_Your boy_. God, Daryl wishes. Wait, no, no he doesn’t. He did once though. A long time ago. When Rick was still with-

“Is that right?” Rick asks, leaning on the door frame, because he’s so tired, he’s swaying on his feet. And all Daryl wants to do is get up and steady him. It wouldn't even be that hard. A hand here. An arm there. 

“You can have it back,” Daryl says, pushing the candy toward her. He doesn’t want it anyway.

“Don’t worry, Dixon, I planned on it.” She smiles and sweeps all of it back into her arms, dropping a Hershey’s bar on Rick on her way out. “Looks like you could use it, boss.”

Rick slides down into a chair and pulls the wrapper open, eating one little rectangle of chocolate at a time. Daryl looks away when he starts licking his fingers. Or he tries to, his eyes skittering across the surface of the table then back up then back at the table. The cycle repeats, and he catches Rick with his index finger in his mouth. Swallowing thickly, Daryl shifts in his seat. 

“Want a piece?” Rick asks, offering him the wrapper half-full of chocolate chunks.

“Nah. Sasha force fed me sandwiches all day. I’m good.” 

“Good.” Rick nods. “Good.”

“Did somethin happen? Somethin to do with…?”

“Yeah,” Rick says, but then he shakes his head. “Well, maybe. We’re not sure, but if it looks like a spade, may as well call it one.”

“Figured maybe you actually found him. Or the woman I…”

Rick hums, pushing another square of chocolate between his lips. He doesn’t speak again until he’s finished, crinkling the wrapper up in his palm, his fingers tapping against it.

“Daryl.” He yawns.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go home.”

* * *

The field is a wash. Michonne maps out a one mile radius around the wreckage and has her team check everything. It’s all painstakingly done, inch by inch, with special care paid to the areas that fall within the normal range of an RPG. Even more special care to every spot that looks like a good shooting position.

An explosives expert comes and confirms King’s hunch. They keep searching.

Rick and his deputies direct traffic until there’s nothing left to do but move the wreckage and the bodies. They’ll go to the FBI field office in Atlanta. Just in case they have any more story left to tell.

When everything’s as clear as it can be, Rick stands in a circle with more FBI agents than he ever thought he’d meet in his life, all of them cast in strange shadows from their car headlights and the distant red, blue, red, blue of King County squad cars.

“Ed Peletier. Rick is he connected to Sophia?” Aaron asks.

“Her father. Carol, the mother, left him when he decided hitting just her wasn’t enough anymore.” He wonders how Carol will take this news. Yeah, she’d left Ed and he’d been horrible, but love can be a funny thing, holding on even when it shouldn’t. Rick sure as shit loved Shane longer than he should have, even if it finally turned into something else in the end. 

“Hmm.” Aaron frowns.

“Of course, there’s another possibility,” Paul says.

“He thought Daryl was in the van,” Rick says. It was the second thing that occurred to him after the Sophia connection, and as soon as it had, he’d had to fight joining the volunteer firefighter in the bushes to heave until he was dry. 

“We’re going to treat it like both things are true until we know for sure,” Michonne says. “Rick, where’s Daryl staying tonight?”

“I’ll keep him with me,” he says, because it’s really how he wants it anyway. Every time he has to let Daryl out of his sight, he feels like his nerves are going to tear him apart.

“Good,” she says. “Tomorrow someone needs to go see Carol again, find out if there’s any reason someone might want to hurt Ed.”

“Should we put her on the list of potential suspects?” Aaron asks. “Follow the usual protocol, I mean. Seems far-fetched given the weapon.”

“Didn’t you tell me Carol runs the diner?” Michonne asks, looking at Rick, a halo of light around her head.

“Yeah,” Rick says. “Best pie in Georgia. And she’s not keeping any RPGs in her walk-in. I was just in it the other day.”

“You can ask her the standard questions just to satisfy the folks back in Atlanta,” Michonne says, “but don’t push her unless there really is something there. Rovia, King, seems like a good way for you to start tomorrow morning.”

“I do love a good pie first thing,” King says, smiling. Come to think of it, he always seems to be doing that. How he can be so upbeat in his line of work, Rick doesn’t know, but it’s comforting in some strange way. Like maybe someday Rick will remember how to smile again too.

* * *

Whatever happened that had Rick out of the station all day seems to have rattled him, especially where Daryl’s concerned. He taps the steering wheel the whole drive home, takes a weird route that makes the whole trip three times as long. He also rushes Daryl inside once they’re there, peering through the blinds once the door has been locked and secured.

Daryl spots another squad car outside, parked at the end of the driveway. 

He doesn’t ask about it, and he doesn’t complain when Rick asks him to sleep in his room.

“You can take the bed,” Rick says, carrying couch cushions in from the living room and throwing them down on the floor right inside the entrance to the bedroom. If Daryl wants to leave the room, he'll probably end up stepping on him. 

“Nah, but we c-” Stop. Stop it.

Rick looks up at him, waiting for him to finish. Fuck, his eyes are still so blue. Age hasn’t changed that one bit.

“I can sleep down there,” Daryl says.

“No.” Rick’s voice is hard and firm, unwavering, and Daryl knows in that second there’s no way he’s going to win this battle. 

He relents, changing into his pajamas before pulling back Rick’s covers and sliding in. His pillows smell like sweat and soap, and Daryl inhales deeply, his mind pushing him back to gym class, to Rick tackling him, the football tucked tight in Daryl’s arms. Sprawled on the grass, a body on top of him, his brain going into overdrive because he'd never been that close. 

Like his eyes, Rick's smell hasn’t changed much either. Just a different brand of soap.

A few feet away, Rick settles onto the couch cushions in his boxers, pulling a throw over the top of him. He tucks the Colt under his pillow and rolls his body toward the door. A few vertebrae peek out from under the blanket. 

“Night, Daryl," he says. 

“Night, Rick.”

Daryl’s not sure either of them actually sleep.  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Daryl, buddy, give it up. What small pining thing do we think he'll do next? How long until he stops thinking in past-tense? Any bets? 
> 
> Catch me on the tumblr at bisexualstarbucky. 
> 
> Next chapter should be fun. I've been waiting to write it since day one of this so, good times. <3


	18. Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh hello. Please mind the updated tags for this chapter.

Nothing happens for a week after the transport van blows up. Michonne tells him that’s normal. They all keep digging, making rounds, making rounds again. A few people reach out to their criminal informants, trying to figure out how and where they could purchase an RPG if they wanted to.

Nothing, and Rick starts to feel like they’re walking in circles. They bring in a hypnotist on a whim. Daryl passes out, spends the whole time shaking, and doesn't remember anything when he comes to. 

More nothing for another week after that. He keeps Daryl moving because he’s their only eyewitness and because it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes they sleep at Rick’s. Daryl takes the bed and Rick curls up in the door way, ready to shoot anything that moves. Sometimes it’s the safe house. There are three bedrooms there, but they only use one. Rick can hardly tolerate being more than ten feet away from him at any given time. 

Chambler and Espinosa also let them stay over. It turns out Espinosa’s ‘spare room’ houses Chambler’s ‘couch’ which is actually a futon. It squeaks every time Daryl moves, but that’s okay. Rick’s sleep might suffer for it, but at least he has a reason to open his eyes, to look around, to be sure for a little while longer that Daryl’s safe.

Two weeks nearly bleed into three before things in King County fall apart again.

Rick’s desk phone rings at 4 p.m. on Tuesday. Daryl sits across from him, feet up on the edge of his desk, reading a motorcycle magazine, his eyes darting occasionally in Rick’s direction. He’s restless and Rick doesn’t blame him. At some point, he’s bound to get tired of the whole protection game. It's a wonder he's not already. 

“Grimes,” Rick says, picking up the phone.

“Sheriff, this is Otis.”

Rick sits up.

“Did something else happen at the farm?” Rick asks.

Daryl drops the magazine.

“No, sir, I’m at work right now, sir.” His voice is trembling. “I work here at the landfill, sir.”

“What’s going on?” Rick asks, already scrambling for a pen. He looks up at Daryl over his notebook. “You wanna go find Michonne for me?”

Otis has to stop talking twice to throw up.

* * *

There’s a body. There’s a body and the bones are so small.

This time, Rick does vomit. Rovia pats him once between the shoulder blades and offers him a piece of gum. The ginger helps settle his stomach, but he still feels sick.

There are FBI agents everywhere, police tape, junk and more junk. Haystacks upon haystacks to look for needles in. Jadis Novak stands near the gate with her arms crossed. She asks him once how long they plan to disrupt her business, and he has to bite back a threat of violence. He doesn’t know what he actually says to her instead, but he knows it doesn't land anywhere in the realm of cordial. 

Good.

“There are at least two sets of remains here.” The woman in the sterile blue suit is rigid and no-nonsense. He wonders if it’s a coping tactic—distancing herself from her work. And he wouldn’t say he misses Abraham over her, but he did have a way of providing some comic relief during the worst of it.

“Two?” Michonne asks.

“Child. I’d guess nine to eleven years old, likely female. The head is missing.”   
  
Rick accidentally swallows his gum, and it catches in his throat. He chokes on it, gags on it, retches once more, the bones in his back popping as his body bows up. Someone presses a bottle of water into his hand and he takes it without thought. King nods down at him. Even his smile is gone today.

“The other?” Michonne throws him a sideways glance, just to make sure he’s mostly okay.

“Adult male, I’d say at least in his 40s judging from the length of the ulna.”

At that information, Rick stands back up straight, quickly wipes the water out of his eyes with the back of his hand. He fixes his gaze on her, already feeling something heavy settle into his stomach and his limbs. One deep breath, and he summons any hope he has left on Daryl’s behalf.

“How soon can you run DNA?” he asks.

“It’s already being run,” she says, jerking her head back to a man on a field laptop. “Database will take time but if it’s a match to what the other guy already found, shouldn’t take long at all.”

Rick nods and defers to Michonne, lets her direct him to work. It’s some kind of distraction at any rate, carefully moving aside garbage while dogs sniff around—when did they get dogs here? 

He’s helping Rovia comb through a pile of scrap metal when the results finally process through. Four words from the tech, and he falls onto the dirt and buries his head in his hands, his mind flowing back to the man at the station. He thinks of the quarry, tries to imagine how much worse Daryl will be with confirmation. 

“I’ll tell him if you want me to,” Michonne says. “It doesn’t always have to be on you, Rick.”

Rick shakes his head. It would be easy to pass that task off on someone else. So easy.

It’d also be the shittiest thing he’s ever done. He scrubs his face with his hand, squeezing at his jaw and wishing just a little that he could rip his entire skull apart. He doesn’t know what that would do, only that he wants it, wants to be torn asunder and flung to the winds where all this shit will seem so far away. And he wants Daryl with him, free and clear of any pain that's coming. 

“We have the ID on the girl as well,” the tech says, a small crease between her brow the only indication that she actually does feel something. The rest of her expression is just as blank as it was before.

“Sophia,” Rick says, the word coming out a hoarse whisper. He’d already known really, the second he’d seen the tiny bones. He glances up at the tech and gets a single nod.

“We’ll handle Carol then,” Michonne says. “I am going to give you one order though, Rick.”

He looks up at her, accepting the hand she offers and standing up out of the dirt.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t forget to take care of yourself too,” she says. “You can’t help me make this right if you don’t.”

A squeeze to his shoulder. Rick gently pulls away. 

“Don’t know if there is any makin this right.” He steps around her, the keys to his cruiser already in his palm. Maybe he’d been right after all back when he’d thought about grabbing Daryl and running as far away as they could.

Too late now.

* * *

Daryl spends the afternoon with Chambler this time. He calls her Tara now after spending a few nights at her and Rosita’s place. Rick still calls them what he always has even though he’s stayed there just the same.

While they wait for news, the two of them play hangman on sheets of computer paper, a pack of licorice dwindling between them.

“So,” Tara says casually, tearing off a piece of candy with her teeth. “How long have you had a thing for the Sheriff?”

Daryl forgets every letter in the alphabet, staring at the dashed-out lines on the paper. His response is probably the exact wrong one. He should deny it, change the subject, move on with the game and pretend she never said it. He doesn’t think to do any of that.

“Who else knows?” he asks. Because the thought of Rick knowing is too much. The only silver lining in all the bullshit he’s been through the past few weeks is that he’s been so close to him. Or maybe it’s another bad thing in a mountain of bad things—having Rick close enough to remember how he feels about him, but still not getting to actually be with him. Too soon to tell, really.

“Rosita,” she says. “Wouldn’t put it past Michonne to have figured it out. Rovia probably, maybe Aaron or Eric, which means they’d both probably know.”

Daryl hums, frowning. “R.”

Tara draws a little stick leg on her hanged man.

“You didn’t answer me,” she says.

“Since high school, I guess. Thought it was over with, but guess it ain’t.”

“Wasn’t he dating whats-his-face then? The welder at the trailer place.”

“Shane Walsh,” Daryl grits out. “Yeah, he was.”

“Not a fan?”

“I punched him junior year. That fucked up crooked nose he’s got? 'Cause of me.”

“Because he was with Rick?”

“Pfft. I was jealous, yeah, but not… Didn’t like the guy, but no, it’s ‘cause of what he said about him.” Daryl sits back. “L.”

Tara writes two L’s on the dashes and looks up at him, clearly waiting for the story. Daryl grabs a piece of licorice. He's never really told anyone the full story. For one, it gave him away for what he is. Two, he never wanted anyone to take it the wrong way and think Rick was some kind of naive pushover. But Tara already knows about him, already respects Rick and that isn't likely to change. Besides, she's something like a friend.

Maybe it'd be nice too if someone besides Walsh and his buddies finally knew the truth. 

“You know how dumb jock guys get in high school, braggin about sex stuff even though half of it's bullshit. I was around the corner of the old gym smokin, heard a whole group of ‘em talkin. Brant Tucker was goin on about how Maria Gutierrez was a real screamer, then Corey Smith says Stacy Wells has too many teeth. They’re laughin like hyenas about everything, goin on and on, then someone asks Walsh, hey, what about ‘his tight squeeze’?”

Tara frowns.

“So Walsh starts talkin about how often they fuck, all the time accordin’ to him. One of the guys says, ‘but you’re not as queer as him, right? You don’t take it up the ass.’ Someone else says yeah, he’s not ‘a full faggot like Grimes.’ Walsh starts gigglin again, tells him he’s got ‘that fairy Rick’ eatin out of the palm of his hand. Says Rick wanted to try stuff out at first, take turns, figure it out because they're gonna be together forever and should know what they both like. Everyone's in stitches at that point, like it's the funniest shit they've ever heard. He keeps talkin, says that Rick loves him so much that it was easy to ‘convince him’ how he really wanted it. Now he gets to ‘stick it in whenever he wants.’”

“Please tell me that’s when you hit him.”

“That’s when I hit him,” Daryl says. “Couldn’t even see straight. Rick was… smart, nice to everybody includin me even if we barely talked to each other, reasonable, gorgeous. Had a smile on his face most of the time, wanted to settle down with that asshole and start a family—I heard him say it. I wanted him so much, wanted that with him really, and here’s this dick who’s got him and he doesn’t even care. Came around that corner with about one thing in mind, and I did it. Damn near broke my hand.”

“Good. He deserved it.”

“Regret a lot of shit I’ve done in my life, but that ain’t one of ‘em.”

“And Walsh’s friends?”

“Kicked the shit out of him,” Rick chimes in from behind him, voice ragged. Daryl sits up straight. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. If Rick heard enough to know what they’re talking about, then he definitely…

Daryl turns to say something, anything. But the look Rick gives him stops him, settling into his limbs like ice. Part of him hopes that desperate sadness in his eyes is not his reaction to hearing that Daryl had feelings for him. Part of him hopes it is, because if it’s something else, then Daryl’s not sure he wants to know about it.

“Chambler, can you give us a minute?”

Rick slides into the seat across from him as the door clicks closed. And all Daryl can think about is the unfinished hanged man sitting on the table between them.


	19. Scope

Daryl doesn’t react at all to the news about Merle, not at first anyway, which makes it even harder somehow for Rick to explain everything that needs to be explained. He pushes through it anyway, because Daryl deserves to know. The landfill, the bones, the DNA match, standard procedure.

“They’ll need to examine the remains for any additional evidence before they can be re-”

“How much did you hear?” Daryl interrupts. He’s not even looking at Rick, his eyes aimed somewhere on the wall behind him.

“Daryl, do you understand what I’m tellin you?” Rick asks. “Are you with me?”

It’s silent for a few seconds, the ticking of the cheap clock on the wall a little too pronounced for Rick’s liking. Each little tick-tick-tick makes something in his skull throb.

“’This is my mess, baby brother,’” Daryl says. “That’s what he told me. She was crying the whole time.”

Rick sits up straighter, working the notebook out of his pocket.

“That’s the last thing he said to you?” Rick asks.

“Nuh uh, ‘only way out is through,’” Daryl says, eyes glazed over.

“Why’d he say that, Daryl? That it was his mess?”

Daryl presses a palm to his forehead, his face screwing up.

“Don’t,” he says, whimpering quietly.

“He’s gotten you into messes before.” Rick changes tactics, trying to avoid pushing so hard that Daryl breaks. “You said you told him you were done.”

“About every mess I’ve ever been in.” Daryl nods, a bit like a bobblehead pushed to hard. “But this one, he said it was the worst thing he’d ever done to me. Said he’d give anything to undo it. That he was gonna try to make it right if he ever got the chance.”

Somewhere in the middle of Daryl’s speech, Chambler slips into the room, clearly keen on telling him something. It can wait. Rick puts his hand up to keep her from talking.

“What was the mess, Daryl?”

Daryl’s hand slips from his forehead, and then he slams it back into place, hard. The sound of him smacking himself in the face makes Rick flinch.

“She wouldn’t stop screaming.”

“Who?”

“The woman. Said… Said her name was Katy Brandt, said she’s a hooker and no one’d be looking for her, probably wouldn’t even be reported missin. Said if anyone got out to let her family know, tell her Ma she was sorry she didn’t let her help.”

Rick flips the his page of names and scribbles that one out to the side with a few question marks.

“Why was she screaming?” Rick asks.

“Zero tolerance.” Daryl’s fidgeting now, both hands gripping the edge of the table. “Dead next time I saw her.”

“The body when you were with the man from the hotel?”

“Negan.”

“Negan?”

“Other guy kept callin him that. Kept talkin about him like he was the devil himself. That’s what they told Katy, that it was time to see Negan.” Daryl keeps fidgeting. His fingertips drum erratically on the metal. “I talked back so they made me watch.”

“Jesus,” Chambler whispers, a half-finished blue lollipop held limply at her side.

“You know if that’s his first or last name?”

“Lucille.”

“Negan Lucille?”

“No, he named that fuckin baseball bat, kept talkin about it like it was his woman.”

“Baseball bat?” Rick asks, already thinking back to the fingerprint and the double-murder up in Virginia. He writes quickly, his hand cramping from the effort. Hastily, he scribbles ‘tape recorder’ and nudges Chambler, who shows him her cell phone screen, already holding a few minutes of audio in voice recorder mode.

He really does need to talk to the county commissioners about raises after all this. For now, he mouths a thank you. She nods, eyes a little wide.

Okay, raises and mandatory counseling. For everyone.

He focuses back on Daryl, who looks every bit like he’s about to crawl right out of his own skin.

“Is that how he killed her?” Rick asks.

“Didn’t.”

“He didn’t kill her?”

“There was so much blood. So much.”

“Where did it all come from, Daryl?” Rick asks. 

“Took me a while to figure out the other smell.” The chair squeaks again and again as Daryl jostles around. 

“What other smell?”

“The other smell.” Daryl shakes his head, shutting his eyes so tight that his entire face crinkles up.

“Tell me about the other smell, Daryl.”

“Snakes.”

“You already told me about the snakes,” Rick says. “I need to know about the smell.”

Daryl’s panting now, nearly hyperventilating, and Rick knows there’s a limit here. He just doesn’t know where it is.

He decides to give it one more try. Daryl’s breathing speeds a little more.

“Tell me about the other smell, Daryl. Please.”

“I can’t,” Daryl says, starting to dry heave, and Rick knows he’s got to end it. He grabs for Chambler’s abandoned coffee mug, glad when he finds that it’s only water. Then he tosses it right at Daryl’s face. Across from him, Daryl sputters a little and stills, his breath ragged but edging closer to normal.

“Daryl?”

Tears spill out of his eyes immediately, joining the water running off his face and dripping onto the table. The letters in the hangman game blur and spread across the paper.

Daryl blinks a few times before finally meeting Rick’s eyes. He doesn’t bother to wipe his face.

“Daryl?”

“Least I got time to get shit together for a funeral, I guess,” Daryl says. And then he stands up, his chair screeching across the tile. Rick doesn’t stop him from leaving, tracking the sound of him moving down the hallway until he hears the door of the staff bathroom slam shut.

* * *

Rick heads back to the landfill once he’s sure that Chambler and Dr. Cloyd have a handle on Daryl. He wants to stay there, wants to wrap his arms around him and shoot anyone who comes too close. But he knows it’s not feasible, that there’s still work to be done.

They call in help. All of Michonne’s FBI team, additional agents, highway patrol, Kendall PD. Rick catches Chief Blake directing his own men across the yard, standing atop an old metal school desk. He gives Rick a look that comes way too close to smug for a crime scene. Asshole.

They find another body by the end of the day.

They find it stuffed into the cab of Daryl’s missing truck, crushed between an old Mazda and a lime green Buick.

“You don’t keep records of who brings in what?” Michonne asks, her arms crossed while she addresses Ms. Novak.

Jadis shrugs.

“Never needed them before,” she says.

“Security cameras?” Rick asks, scanning the general area.

“No cameras, no records.” She shrugs again, even manages to look bored, like they didn’t just find multiple human remains in her place of business. Rick squints at her, assessing. “You’re cops. Trace plates,” she says. 

“Can we see your employee records then?” Michonne asks. “We’ll need to know who has access. Besides you.”

Michonne flashes a saccharine smile that Rick can tell is fake. Novak glares but walks into her little box of an office. One loud squeal of an old file cabinet drawer and she comes back, plopping a few dirty manila folders into Michonne’s palm.

“Anything else?” Novak asks.

“That’ll be all for now, but please stay close.” Michonne nods, already leafing through the folders. Jadis Novak, Otis Cartwright, Brion Rozell, Simon Smoak, Martin Sheffield, Gareth Tyler.

No one stands out in Rick’s mind. Michonne hands the folders off to someone in an FBI field jacket and gives them instructions to run the names through the system. Another laptop sits open on top of Rick’s squad car, pushing every possible iteration of “Negan” through every database ever created.

Rick sighs and looks out over the scene of law enforcement, watching a faraway dog sniff at a pile of mattresses. He finally asks the question he’s been putting off, feels a rush of something deep and sick when he thinks about the possible answers.

“How does this look for Daryl?” he asks. Next to him, Michonne shifts in her short heels.

“Eventually, someone who isn’t here is gonna ask me why he’s not in custody,” Michonne says. “But we still have time.”

“And you think what I think?” Rick asks, seeking reassurance.

“I think…” Michonne trails off when a dog in the distance starts barking. “I think you need to be careful. Eventually this is all gonna come together, Rick, and someone will start asking questions.”

“Asking questions about what?” he asks, but he’s pretty sure he already knows. Michonne glances at him before taking a step forward, and all Rick can say is, “yeah, okay,” before he moves to follow.

“But no,” she says, the two of them watching one of the techs jog across the landfill with a silver briefcase. “I think this is something a lot bigger than Daryl Dixon.”

“Can’t decide if I want you to be right on that or not.”

The scope of it is already very nearly overwhelming. 

“Everything we’re finding here has already happened, Rick. It’s not our job to undo it, and hope doesn’t work backwards,” she says. “Our duty to these people and their families is justice and closure. The future’s the only part we can still change.”

Rick glances at her, the sound of the dog barking still ringing in his ears. Up ahead, King’s already pulling something out of a pile, Chief Blake standing behind him with his hands on his hips.

“And if you want to protect whatever future you might have, following this where it goes is the best way to do that.”

Rick doesn’t get the chance to reply to that before they’re there with King and Blake and the others. He watches them dig something else out of the pile of garbage and onto a clean tarp. It’s a dress, filthy and worn by time, but he still recognizes it instantly from the picture in Jacqui’s file. Her favorite, according to the nurse who'd given him the photo. 

A garbage bag follows, full of other clothes. Jeans, underwear, a once-white bra streaked with rust. A tiny blue tee shirt with a rainbow. Button-downs. Socks. Shoes. Headbands. 

One by one, every article gets laid out on the tarp.

It makes it all worse somehow, these little indicators of people who were once alive and aren’t anymore. All of their humanity stripped away in the end and stuffed in a black garbage bag. And why?

For a second, he imagines that outfit from the farm littered there among the rest. Sleeveless plaid and hole-marked jeans and-

Rick’s teeth clench together, grinding in his mouth.

“Williams,” he says, finding her in the growing crowd of law enforcement observing the latest find.

“Yes sir?”

“There’s an agent back there near my car running names,” he says. “Copy down the addresses, grab Espinosa, and go pick up every last one of ‘em for questioning.”

Next to him, Michonne turns to listen, but clearly doesn't object. 

"Rovia and Raleigh can go with you as backup," she says, nodding at them both before turning to Rick. “You and I can grab Mr. Cartwright and Ms. Novak on our way out. I didn't have any plans tonight anyway." 

The look that spreads across Rick’s face borders on feral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can't they just, like, forget all the murders and kiss though? 
> 
> Ugh.


	20. Roadblocks

The mood at the station reaches new levels of tension that night. It hovers in the air, thickening the oxygen so that every time Rick breathes, he feels like he has to try a little bit harder just to stay on his feet. They’re all swimming—Rick and Michonne and the few people on their team they’ve pulled from the landfill search. Daryl, tucked away in the locker room attempting to play cards with Eric. Rick spares a glance at one of the artist’s drawings of Negan before he grabs another folder and heads for an interrogation room.

Next door to him, Michonne and Rovia are questioning one of the others.

Rick nods at Aaron and steps into the room, just a little thankful that it’s not the same one he sat in with Daryl earlier that day. Though this one looks pretty identical, the clock on the wall has stopped with the big hand on the four, the second hand giving little jerks without actually moving. Not quite dead, but almost. 

At the table, Jadis blinks at him, the back part of her hair pulled into a messy bun at her nape. Blunt, bleach-blonde bangs brush the tops of her eyebrows. She has her work coveralls half-off, the top part tied around her waist to reveal what looks oddly like the top of a woman’s silk slip, one like his mother would’ve worn under her Sunday dresses.

“Ms. Novak,” Rick nods.

“Sheriff,” she says, before looking at Aaron. “Agent. Charging me?”

Rick and Aaron both sit down, Rick leaning far back in his seat and putting his boots up on the table. Next to him, Aaron leans forward, setting his palms down on the metal. Aaron drums his fingers once, twice, three times before breaking the silence.

“Can you tell me what usually happens when someone brings a load to the landfill?” Aaron asks, and Rick has to give him credit, because all of the questions swirling in his head are a lot more aggressive than that.

“Charging me?” Jadis asks again.

“We’re just trying to get to the bottom of things right now,” Rick says. “If you could just answer the question.”

Jadis chews that over before sighing.

“People come in. Weigh garbage. They pay. They toss. They leave.”

“So you don’t handle what they bring in at all?” Aaron asks.

“Maybe, if heavy.” Jadis says, before flicking her eyes up and down Rick’s frame. He recrosses his boots with a loud thump. “After this, we should see each other. Sexually.”

There’s a beat of silence while both he and Aaron process what she just said. Rick’s brain cycles through several responses, each less polite than the last. He also tries to ignore the face his mind jumps to the second he thinks about seeing anybody like that. (He ignores the second face even harder.)

“Heavy, huh?” Rick says, plowing right past the come-on. His head tilts to the side. “Like a pickup truck?”

“Would taste you,” Jadis says. 

“Ms. Novak, if we could stick to the questions.” Aaron raps his fingers on the table again. “Is a pickup truck something anyone might have looked at a little closer than, say, a standard bag of trash?”

She shifts her gaze from Rick to him, though she doesn’t look happy about it. A slight shake of her head.

“We take. We don’t bother.”

Aaron takes a look at a folder of his own, flipping through the pages and humming quietly.

“Ms. Novak, are you aware that state and federal law requires you to inspect at least ten percent of all of the waste that comes into your facility?” he asks without even looking up. Casually, like it’s a fun fact he learned from a restaurant menu or a Snapple lid.

Jadis blinks slowly.

“And that you’re required to hold onto records for at least three years? Records which you claim you don’t keep,” Aaron continues, his tone taking a sharper turn.

“Fine me,” Jadis says.

“Yeah. You know, it’s funny that you mention fines,” Aaron says. “Because you would’ve been inspected regularly. And those inspectors, unlike you apparently, keep pretty thorough records. And in all those records, there’s no mention of your facility ever paying any fines since you took over in, hmm, 2009?”

“2008,” she corrects.

“So, Ms. Novak, where are the records? Because either you’re missing them or several people failed to do their jobs.” Aaron leans back in his chair at that point, shutting the folder in his lap. “Hey Rick…”

“Mhm.”

“Did those warrants to search Ms. Novak’s property come through yet?” Aaron asks, and Rick schools his reaction. Last he knew, someone from Kendall PD was trying to track down the judge. But she doesn’t need to know that.

“Should be any second now, if they haven’t already. Her office, her home, her car,” he says, and Jadis cracks just a little, shifting in her chair.

He and Aaron let the silence stretch on, both of them thumbing through papers in their folders while the tension builds in the air. 

“Burger and fries,” she says finally. “Strawberry milkshake.”

“Oh, you’re makin demands now?” Rick asks.

“Too hungry to remember records,” she says, pulling the calm, cool mask back over her person. “Food, then talk.”

“Fine,” Rick says. He glances at the clock on his phone—he probably needs to make sure Daryl’s eaten anyway. He lets his boots drop off the table, one by one, and then stands up, placing his hat back on his head. “Lookin forward to another chat.”

Jadis crosses her arms over her chest and actually winks. 

“Can’t wait.”

* * *

Rick eats dinner in the locker room, straddling one of the wooden benches with food spread between him and Daryl. Their knees are touching, their fries mixed together in one pile. It’s a moment of near-normalcy in the hive of activity that is the rest of the station. 

Behind Daryl, Aaron and Eric eat much the same way, though Rick notices that their legs are tangled together on one side in a way that’s far too intimate for Rick to get away with. He twitches his leg instead, feeling the warmth of Daryl’s skin seeping through the layers of fabric between them.

“Almost forgot,” Rick says, reaching into his back pocket and pulling out an evidence bag before tossing it at Daryl. They’d found his wallet beneath the driver’s seat of his truck. There was nothing on it evidence-wise. All the prints were Daryl’s. No blood, no fibers. Rick signed it out of evidence the second they’d concluded it wasn’t going to give them any answers.

It won’t give Daryl back what he lost either, but it’s something.

“Thanks,” Daryl says quietly, pulling it out of the bag and thumbing through it. He hums before tucking it into his front pocket. 

“Everything there? Best we can tell, no one’s touched it but you.”

“Yeah.” Daryl reaches for another fry, absently twirling it in the ketchup, drawing abstract designs on the waxy paper beneath. “One less thing to worry about.”

Rick nods and opens his mouth to say something else, and maybe he even gets it out. Later on, he won’t remember what it was, if it was important or not. If it had anything to do with the case or the situation or was something else entirely. He won't know either if he said it or if it only existed in his head before he lost it forever.

All he knows is that a few heartbeats pass in which Daryl finally brings the fry to his mouth, and then all hell breaks loose.

Against all logic, Rick’s brain screams ‘earthquake’ before anything else. He’s on the floor of the locker room along with the other three men. There’s cola seeping into his clothes, cold and wet. One long ring fills his ears, a high-pitched whine that goes on and on and on. He blinks and looks over at Daryl first—finds his chest is heaving, eyes open wide. Past him, Aaron scrambles to his knees, yelling something that Rick can’t quite make sense of.

He expands his field of vision. The bench sits on its side, barely holding up a long row of lockers that would’ve otherwise fallen on top of all of them. Maybe they would’ve been fine, if a little banged up. Maybe the force of it would’ve crushed them.

Rick blinks, dust burning his eyes, and moves out from under the shadow of the fallen lockers, glancing back up at them. There’s a hole in the wall, the view through it obscured by clouds of pulverized concrete. He can’t hear anything from the other side, can’t even begin to comprehend what that might mean. His fingers go to his ears, rubbing against them like he can somehow shake the ringing loose if he jostles them enough. It doesn’t work.

One little shift in the position of the scene in front of him has him moving quickly. He grabs Daryl under the armpits and pulls him across the polished concrete, just in case. He doesn’t stop until he’s got him into the showers, until he’s tucked him into a far corner where he’s pretty much hidden from view.

Daryl blinks up at him and claws for his hand when Rick starts to walk away, grasping it tightly and digging nails into his wrist. Rick stumbles, nearly falling over onto him. He almost lets it happen, almost curls up into a ball by his side and waits for whatever comes next.

“Eric!” Aaron’s voice finally cuts through the ringing, and Rick finds himself tugging free of Daryl’s grip, one instinct overtaking another.

“Stay here,” he says. “I will come for you when it's safe.” He tugs the taser out of his holster and lays it in Daryl’s palm. “Works just like a gun. Point. Shoot.”

He waits for Daryl to jerk his head in understanding and then he’s moving toward Aaron’s frantic yells. His boot slips in a few drops of blood. His, he realizes, looking down at his leg, where a small gash is oozing red. It’s not bad enough to worry about right now.

“Rick, help me,” Aaron says, voice breaking. Rick falls hard on his knees, a sick feeling twisting in his gut. The contents of his own locker are piled around Eric’s prone body, the door hanging half on the hinges, one corner piercing Eric’s rib cage. There’s blood everywhere, seeping through the knees of Rick’s jeans, through a dirty pair of sweats, through half-eaten hamburger buns and soggy fries.

In the distance, Rick’s pretty sure he hears sirens. 

“I can’t lift it,” Aaron says, jerking his head toward the lockers, tears slicing through the dust on his face. Rick’s on his feet in seconds, wedging his shoulder underneath the structure. Together, they get it back upright. Rick kicks the bench against it like a bookend and runs for clean towels.

He doesn’t know how long they stay there, pressing towel after towel against Eric’s chest, until someone else comes in.

“Anyone in here?”

Rick recognizes Michonne’s voice and chokes out something he doesn’t even register. Then she’s there, her black skirt and jacket covered in gray. Her skin takes on a faded appearance, like she stepped right out of an old photograph. The moment she takes in the scene, her hands join theirs in trying to staunch the bleeding.

“Daryl?” she asks, one hand checking for Eric’s pulse, an action Aaron’s done at least half a dozen times already.

“He’s safe,” Rick says, some part of him not wanting to risk anyone overhearing exactly where he is. He doesn’t know what happened yet or how or who. “How’s it look out there?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Didn’t make it that far.”

“Go,” Aaron says. “I doubt three of us are doing any better here than two.”

“I’ll go. I know the station better.” Rick moves to stand up before leaning in toward Michonne’s ear, speaking so low even he can barely understand it. “Can you hear me?”

She nods.

“He’s in the showers. Please keep him safe.”

He doesn’t even wait for confirmation before heading out into the hallway, tugging a bit of his undershirt up over his nose and mouth to filter the air. It’s easy enough to find where the explosion started when he thinks about the layout of the building. Down the hallway and around the corner, he finds the holding cells in shambles, one completely blown to hell, its door hanging on by the tiniest piece of a hinge.

There are two bodies inside. Rick doesn’t need to move any closer to know that Otis Cartwright isn’t breathing. He moves to the side and tugs the door the rest of the way free, the heavy weight of it carrying it to the ground with a loud clang. Inside, he squats down to confirm what he already suspected, pressing two fingers to the pulse point on Cartwright’s neck.

It’s not until he’s standing over the second possible body that he realizes who he’s looking at beneath all the layers of gray and brown.

“Fuck,” he says. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

“Rick, are you okay?” Michonne calls from the other side of the hole.

He squats down and checks for another pulse. There’s nothing. He checks again, fingers finding every point he can think of, the skin beneath his hands already growing cold by the time he reaches for an ankle.

“Jadis Novak is dead,” he finally answers.

Everything else passes in a daze after that. Firefighters and paramedics show up. Rick directs the first EMT he sees to the locker room, watches a young girl who can’t be more than twenty talk to Eric’s unconscious body while she and her partner walk him out of the building with Aaron trailing behind. 

“I’m Enid and this is Carl. We’ve got you now. Just hang in there.”

They release the rest of the people they picked up for questioning after the paramedics check them over.

“We can try talking to them again when everything’s settled,” Michonne says, scrubbing blood and dust from her hands and face under the spray of one of the showers.

“She knew something and was gonna tell us,” Rick says. “I keep thinking that’s why this happened, but how would they have known what cell? Or that she…”

He slides his fingers back through his waves, cringing at the grit that clings to them on the way through.

“It’s like hittin’ a roadblock,” he says.

“Exactly.” Michonne shakes the water from her hands. “And what do we do when we hit a roadblock, Rick?” she asks, but she’s already turning away, probably to go help her agents finish packing up the evidence so they can move the operation somewhere more secure. Rick walks along the row of the showers to the last one, finds Daryl sitting there on the built-in bench, flipping the taser over in his hands.

Meeting his eyes, Rick jerks his head for him to follow and leads him out, past all the flashing lights, onlookers, and press, some showing up in news vans all the way from the city.

When Rick starts driving, he does it with no destination in mind. He just keeps going, out of Kendall, out of the county. Sometimes he takes a turn at random, eyes glancing up in the rearview again and again to make sure that any lights behind them fall away. It doesn’t matter where they’re going—probably better really if even they don’t know. 

In the end, they get a room at the Alexandria Motel and RV park somewhere near the border of Tennessee. They barely make it to the bed once the door is shut and locked, both of them collapsing in what feels like seconds.

In the morning, they wake up woven together, dust and blood streaked across the comforter. For several minutes, neither of them bother to move.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit's gettin real intense. 
> 
> I just want to say another thank you to those of you who've stuck with this story so far. And a warm welcome to all the new readers. We're getting closer and closer to putting it all together (and to that Rickyl endgame). 
> 
> Leave me your thoughts, your gifs, your keysmashes. Or come send me weird anons on [Tumblr](http://bisexualstarbucky.tumblr.com).


	21. In Your Corner

Daryl wakes up in Rick’s arms. In Rick’s everything really. There’s an arm wedged under his waist, another slung over his rib cage. Rick has a leg slotted between his too, their feet tangled together at the end of the bed.   
  
Sometime in the middle of the night, Daryl remembers kicking his boots and socks off, but he can feel the sole of Rick’s boot nestled up against his calf.

He never wants to move from this spot, and part of him smarts with guilt at that. He just found out that Merle’s dead yesterday. He should be grieving, should be somber after what happened at the station.   
  
But he mourned his brother weeks ago, and there in Rick’s arms, the things that happened the night before feel like someone else’s nightmare. Daryl nestles just that much closer, letting his nose shift toward Rick’s chest where he can smell him. Despite everything, something of his laundry soap lingers. Daryl recognizes it because it’s become his soap too. The same with Rick’s body wash. But that other smell, the faintest musk sprinkled with sugar? He inhales it deeply and glances up, expecting to see Rick’s face still masked in sleep, peaceful in a way it hasn't been since high school. 

Instead, blue eyes peer down at him, and Daryl actually starts a little in Rick’s arms. The same arms that don’t move from around him even while they stare at each other, an action that feels more dangerous with every passing moment.   
  
Everything in Daryl’s body screams and claws at his insides, like if they do it loud enough, he can somehow get closer, be closer, move closer. The pit of his stomach swoops and swoops, begging him to taste Rick’s mouth, to find out what could have been once, what could still be someday if this shit is ever over and Daryl avoids lethal injection.

But neither of them move at all. It’s as though they’re under some kind of spell that moving would break. And maybe they are. As long as they stay still, they can pretend they haven’t noticed the way that they’ve melted into one continuous entity.    
  
Anything else—the barest hint of a thumb brushing across Daryl’s back, a palm cupping Rick’s scruffy cheek—anything else would be taking a conscious step forward, a step Daryl knows they cannot take. Not now, maybe not ever, but especially not now.

Instead they keep staring, blue eyes into blue eyes, until the alarm on Rick’s phone goes off.  
  
"Michonne texted," Rick says, rolling away from him and shutting it off. "Eric's stable, should pull through fine."   
  
"That's good," Daryl says. He'd only really talked to him sketching sessions and last night, but he seemed nice enough. A smile for everybody and so in love with his husband that it make Daryl equal parts hopeful and jealous.

"Everybody else alright?" 

"He was the worst off other than… Think everyone else just needed a stitch or two." 

"Yeah, including you," Daryl says, looking at the blood-streaked comforter. "Hope it stays that way though." It's all grown beyond him now, and he has to admit that the bigger it all gets, the less guilt there is on his shoulders. But he still doesn't want to see anyone else hurt. 

“You go ahead and take the first shower,” Rick says, ripping open the hole in his pants a little more so he can look over the wound on his legs. “I’m gonna go grab our bags and the first aid kit out of the trunk."  
  
Daryl nods, already working on the buttons of his shirt while he heads for the bathroom.   
  
“Daryl,” Rick says, and Daryl turns back to find him hesitating with his hand on the door knob.

“Mhm?”

“I didn’t think yesterday was the right time to talk about this. But I don’t know that there’s gonna be a right time, not soon anyway.”

The swooping feeling comes back with a vengeance, taking up residence in Daryl’s stomach, his chest, his upper arms. Last night when they drove up here, he'd found himself wishing they could just keep going. That they could just drive and drive and never look back. 

“I heard what you told Chambler, about why you did what you did,” Rick says. “Shane always said you overheard him talkin about us and called him a bunch of shit. And me too. That you jumped him and didn’t realize his buddies were there.”

“Yeah, asshole told the principal that too.” Daryl shrugs. “Everybody thought I was a goddamn homophobe when I couldn’t stop thinkin about you.”   
  
“Why didn’t you tell the truth?” Rick asks. Daryl fidgets, thumbing at one of his button holes. 

“Was bad enough he talked about you like that to all his buddies. People already hated me.” Daryl looks down. “Rather take the heat than have a bunch of people thinkin that you were just… that he…”

“That I was some naive idiot who let some guy use me any way he liked?” Rick asks. “Would’ve been true, I guess.”

“Wouldn't've been.” Daryl shakes his head. “You loved him. Either one of you was an idiot, it was him, for not realizin what he had.”

Rick stares at him again for a moment or two, brow furrowed just enough to form a faint crease.  

“I know we’re older now, and that we aren’t exactly the same people we were then, but thank you. For what you did. I figured it out too late, who he really was, but I'm glad somebody else knew.”

“I tried to tell you back then, but I couldn’t get near you after that. Was like he had you under surveillance or some shit. I’d start to talk to you, and two of his buddies would be there, like a goddamn gang,” Daryl says. “Teachers wouldn’t let me near you either. Guess they figured I’d already jumped one of you, so it was only a matter of time. I even sent you a letter once.”

The memory comes screaming back, Daryl digging through the couch cushions and under the car seats, peering under vending machines and digging in the dirt around the vacuums up at the car wash. He’d ended up paying for the stamp mostly in pennies, the last one he needed handed over by the postal worker herself when she counted them out and found him one short.

“I never got it.”

“Yeah, kinda guessed that. Or that you thought it was bullshit if you did.”

“We can’t change it now, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad to know that you were in my corner then,” Rick says. “Makes it feel a lot less like he got away with it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m glad you’re in mine now.”

Rick smiles softly at that and reaches for the door handle again.

“Yeah, me too.”

* * *

Rick takes the long way home, swinging through Atlanta and leaving Daryl with Andrea at her law office—feeling just this side of awkward because it’s the first time he’s ever met her despite working with her wife for weeks. But he doesn’t want Daryl anywhere near Kendall right now.   
  
Of course, he also doesn't want to leave him anywhere at all. Hell, right now, his ideal would be both of them moving into an underground bunker with a full arsenal, a lifetime of food, and a bed barely big enough to hold two. But he's only got so many realistic options, and Daryl had said one big hell no to being left alone all day in FBI headquarters with a bunch of people he doesn't know. At least Andrea feels a little less like a stranger. 

“Look,” she says, unlocking and opening up the top drawer of her desk. Inside is a Glock 19, a loaded spare magazine, and a box of bullets. “Michonne has to go to the range all the time anyway, so now I go with her. It’s date night for us.”

Rick nods and looks over at Daryl who nods back, confirming without words that he still has the stun gun Rick gave him last night too, tucked away somewhere on his person. 

“This building is one of the more secure ones in the city, but if someone manages to make it past security and the keycard scanners, I will shoot them,” she says, pulling a tablet out of another drawer and walking it into the waiting area for her office, where Daryl’s already sprawled across the leather couch. “Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, whatever. Feel free to download free games too. If you get hungry or thirsty, there’s always water, coffee, and pastries in the break room down the hall. And I’ll have Donna check with you before she orders lunch. If you need anything else, just let me know or ask her.”   
  
Andrea claps a hand on his shoulder before turning somber.

"I also wanted to say that, well, those bastards took my sister too." She squeezes gently before letting go of him. “I know you probably don’t want to talk about him, but if you do, I can make the time.”

“Thanks,” Daryl says. “For all of this. And I'm sorry. About your sister.”

Andrea manages a soft smile before nodding and disappearing into her office, closing the doors behind her.

“I need to get back,” Rick says. “I might have you stay with Andrea tonight if you can stand it.”

“Can you?” Daryl asks. And Rick almost says no to it automatically. Barring the fact that they don't actually have access to a bunker, he still hates letting him out of his sight. It's hard trusting someone else to keep him safe, especially when he'll be miles away if anything does go wrong.   
  
“FBI is pretty damn good at surveillance, I imagine." He's pretty sure he's trying to convince himself more than he is Daryl. But he had noticed the black SUV parked across the street the second they drove up, and Michonne had confirmed who was inside.  

“I’ll manage,” Daryl says. "Do what you gotta." 

“Maybe it’ll be good for you to be away from it for a little while. Get some real rest, pretend it’s all some bullshit happening to somebody else, eat some rich city lawyer food.”

“Gotta admit my body could probably use a real vegetable. Maybe I’ll get one of them dainty city salads with all the fruit and shit. Whatever the fuck kale is.”

Rick laughs and feels an ‘I love you’ nearly tumble out of his mouth. Which, what the fuck? He doesn’t… Couldn't. 

“I’ll check in often. Please do the same,” he says instead.

Daryl nods and reaches for Rick’s hand, giving it a squeeze that seems friendly but feels anything but, especially when they both let go, sliding apart like molasses on a cold night.

When Rick looks back before shutting the doors, he finds Daryl staring at him from under strands of dark hair.

He wishes more than anything that he could stay.

* * *

Rick actually contemplates turning right back around the second he gets to town. Chief Blake has apparently “graciously” offered them and the FBI space at the Kendall Police Station, and if Rick has to hear one more, “We’re always happy to help our neighbors” said in that particular tone, he’s going to walk into the supply closet, lock himself inside, and never come out.

“For what it’s worth, I don’t like him either,” Michonne says, “but we need a headquarters with some level of security.”

“Kinda thought our last one had some level of security until it exploded.”

Rick’s been watching security footage pulled from the sheriff’s office all morning, trying to see if anyone unusual gets near that part of the building, inside or the out. There’s nothing there but frustration. The few cameras they do have rotate on their own every half hour, and it seems the person who planted the explosive knew there’d be a blind spot to work with. Or they got lucky.

Either way, they have nothing but a grainy image of the bomb already stuck to the brick outside before it went off. They’ve sent about a million images to FBI experts who will use them and evidence at the scene to piece together how it was made before comparing it to devices from other crimes. If they're really lucky, they'll come up with suspects who might have done it. It's all a game of slim odds as of now.   
  
But it’s better than nothing.

“So there’s two possibilities,” Rick says, tapping his pen on the cover of his notebook. “Either they somehow knew that Novak was about to talk, that she was in that cell, and that they could easily sneak up and plant a bomb.”

“Or they knew we’d taken her, and possibly others who might talk, into questioning and wanted some kind of distraction, something that might see us release them before we could get started,” Michonne says.

“I can’t decide which is more likely,” Rick says. “That they deliberately targeted her somehow or that they didn’t give a shit who they might kill.”

“There’s also the third possibility,” Chief Blake says, stepping into the room with his hands resting on his duty belt. “They were just trying to scare us all off. Probably never counted on us finding the bodies.”

“Well, if we’re going to keep listing random possibilities, it could be anything.” Rick closes the laptop. “Could've been some asshole trying to get out of paying his speeding ticket. Or a meth head hoping they'd somehow be able to raid the evidence locker. Hell, maybe it was you.”

“Would be wise to consider all possibilities, wouldn’t it?” Blake asks. "Though I think I can rule out that last one for you considering I was out at the landfill."   
  
“Did you want somethin?” Rick takes a sip of his coffee. Somehow the swill at the Kendall station is even worse than the swill they had back at theirs. Being forced to share space with these assholes is the least of their problems of course, but he still fucking hates it.

“Just passin by, thought you could use the help.”

Rick feels his jaw clench.

“Chief,” Michonne says, nudging Rick’s boot under the table, “We’ll need a place to set up our tent. Thirty by sixty feet, plus a little extra for the guylines.”

“Sure thing, agent,” he says, plastering that politician’s smile across his face. “We'll get right on that. Martinez!” Blake calls before disappearing into the hallway.

“We better solve this fast or there’s gonna be another murder,” Rick mumbles, but Michonne’s already on her feet, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair.

“Come on, Rick. Let’s go check on things at the landfill and then make a few rounds.”

They’re digging through Novak’s office a half hour later when Rick finds the folder shoved into the back of the file cabinet.

“Michonne,” Rick says, already flipping through the pages. A hiring date, address, social security number, some pretty standard employment documents.

“What is it?”

“An employee file for Tamiel Tabor.” He freezes when he realizes that the check box for “terminated” is ticked, a date scrawled out next to it in blue ink. He pulls his notebook out of his pocket, flipping through it to confirm what he’s already nearly sure of.

The same day they found the break-in at Daryl’s trailer, complete with a little square of red fabric and a drop Tabor’s blood.

“Could be a coincidence,” Michonne says, looking over his shoulder. “If she didn’t show up and no one heard from her.”

“Yeah,” Rick says, “could be.”

“But given the circumstances.” She takes the folder and carefully slips it into an evidence bag.

Both of them look out the windows at the landfill, at the dogs, agents, and techs in the distance still combing through piles upon piles of potential evidence.

“Yeah,” Rick says again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, can you both just forget all the murdery stuff and make out already? Please? 
> 
> (No? Why not?)
> 
> >>>[Tumblr](http://bisexualstarbucky.tumblr.com)<<<

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [Tumblr.](http://bisexualstarbucky.tumblr.com)


End file.
